THE    MAN    OF 
NAZARETH 


FREDERICK  LINCOLN  ANDERSON 


THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  VORK  •  BOSTON  •   CHICAGO   •  DAIXAS 
ATLANTA    •    SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON   •   BOMBAY   •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA.  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


THE 
MAN    OF    NAZARETH 


•       ••"BY 
FREDERICK  LINCOLN  ^NDERSON,  p.p. 

PROFESSOR  OF  3?E^^Tbsif4iJj;i^t'.INTj:il')»REaPArio^^^  I^  ^  ' ', 
NEW.tON  IfflDOLOGrcAL  ^SH^KJltCilft'  '     *    *       ' 


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THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1914 

All  rithts  resmad 


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Copyright,  1914   • 
.  ...  By,XHE  Jd^C^ILLAN  CO^.PANY 
.•^ettp.'antf  ^IectK>ty#ea.;  3ftibfes1be^  October,  1914. 


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THIS  BOOK  IS  DEDICATED  TO 

FEARLESS  PATRIOT 

HONORED  LEADER   IN  THE  WORK  OF  CHRIST 

MASTER  AND  EMINENT  TEACHER  OF  THE  ART  OF  PREACHING 

BEARING  CHOICE  LITERARY  FRUIT  IN  OLD  AGE 

AN  ALTOGETHER  WHOLESOME  MAN 


f^nodctiz 


FOREWORD 

In  writing  this  book,  I  have  had  the  ordinarily 
intelligent  man  constantly  in  mind,  and  have 
tried  to  answer  some  of  the  questions  about 
Jesus,  which  have  often  arisen  in  his  thinking 
but  have  rarely  passed  his  lips.  But  while  writ- 
ing for  the  people,  I  have  never  forgotten  the 
experts,  a  fact  which  they  will  quickly  perceive, 
if  they  will  do  me  the  honor  to  penetrate  to  the 
core  of  the  volume.  I  have  tried  to  observe  the 
rules  of  the  critical  game,  have  practically  used 
only  the  first  three  gospels,  and,  even  in  them, 
have  clearly  differentiated  the  sources.  I  am 
ready  to  defend  my  position  in  the  scholarly 
arena. 

This  book  is  not  an  investigation,  but  a  state- 
ment of  the  results  of  fourteen  years  of  research, 
put  forth  in  popular  form.  There  are  therefore 
few  critical  arguments,  few  citations  from  schol- 
arly authorities  and  not  many  quotations.  Con- 
sequently, also,  I  have  not  failed  to  use  the  con- 

vii 


Vm  FOREWORD 

elusions,  so  laboriously  won,  for  the  quickening 
of  faith  and  courage.  As  the  readers  will  soon 
see,  I  belong  to  no  party,  but  have  attempted  to 
investigate  independently,  to  make  a  fearless 
search  for  truth,  and  have  drawn  the  picture  of 
Jesus  which  the  facts,  as  I  see  them,  give  me. 
My  whole  attitude  has  been  historical  rather  than 
theological.  The  final  result  will  probably  fully 
satisfy  nobody,  and  that  may  be  the  best  test 
of  its  real  worth. 

This  is  not  a  Life  of  Jesus,  nor  a  summary  of 
his  teachings,  nor  a  mere  character  sketch.  It 
is  rather  a  treatment  of  the  most  important  prob- 
lems about  Jesus  and  his  career,  and  that  so  far 
as  possible  from  the  viewpoint  of  Jesus  himself. 
I  am  aware  of  the  boldness  of  the  attempt,  but 
feel  that  we  may  reverently  penetrate  to  the 
very  heart  of  Jesus.  Indeed,  it  is  doubtful  if 
we  can  truly  know  him  in  any  other  way. 

It  should  be  understood  that  Chapter  I  is 
merely  preliminary,  inserted  to  give  a  general  view 
of  the  subject  and  to  create  an  appetite  for  some- 
thing more  definite  and  detailed.  In  my  own 
mind,  Chapters  III  and  IV  constitute  the  prin- 
cipal contribution  of  the  book,  and  are  the  real 


FOREWORD  IX 

reason  for  its  publication,  though  Chapters  VII 
and  IX  may  possibly  rank  with  them. 

Of  course,  it  would  be  impossible  for  me  to 
give  a  list  of  all  the  books  which  have  influenced 
my  thought  on  this  great  subject.  The  following 
authors  should,  however,  be  mentioned  as  pe- 
cuHarly  responsible  for  the  final  form  and  indeed 
some  of  the  phrases  of  the  book.  For  the  first 
chapter,  I  am  much  indebted  to  a  sermon  on 
The  Light  of  the  World  by  my  friend,  Rev.  James 
A.  Francis  of  Boston,  and  to  Harnack's  Chris- 
tianity and  History,  My  greatest  helpers  for  the 
most  important  chapters  were  Von  Soden  in  his 
Die  Wichtigsten  Fragen  im  Leben  Jesu,  and  Holtz- 
mann  in  his  Das  Messianische  Bewusstsein  Jesu. 
For  the  chapter  on  the  teaching,  Clarke's  The 
Ideal  of  Jesus  proved  valuable.  For  the  discus- 
sion of  the  character,  I  must  mention  BushnelFs 
The  Character  of  Jesus,  still  inspiring  though 
from  the  older  point  of  view,  and  a  little  book, 
published  since  I  began  to  write,  Fosdick's  The 
Manhood  of  the  Master,  which  is  sure  to  prove  of 
lasting  worth. 

For  kindly  and  yet  thorough  criticism,  my 
thanks  are  due  to  two  of  my  colleagues.  Professor 


X  FOREWORD 

Richard  M.  Vaughan  and  Mr.  James  P.  Berkeley, 
and,  especially,  to  my  father  and  mother,  who 
have  also  labored  in  many  other  ways  to  help  me 
in  the  production  of  this  book. 

Frederick  Lincoln  Anderson. 


Newton  Centre,  Mass. 
April  30,  igi4. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  The  Power  Behind  the  History    .     .  i 
II.  The  Situation  in  Which  Jesus  Found 

Himself 23 

in.  How  did  Jesus  Come  to  Believe  Himself 

THE  Messiah? 34 

IV.  How  Jesus  Handled  Messianism     .     .  60 

V.  How  Jesus  Handled  Legalism     ...  97 

VI.  Jesus' Positive  Teaching iii 

VII.  Jesus' Work  AND  His  View  OF  its  Future  137 

VIII.  The  Character  of  Jesus    .....  166 

IX.  The  Finality  of  Jesus      .     .     .     .     .  209 

Appendix 219 

Index 223 


THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 


THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  POWER  BEHIND   THE   HISTORY 

Almost  two  thousand  years  ago  there  appeared 
a  man,  who  changed  the  course  of  human  his- 
tory, who,  above  any  other  person  living  or  dead, 
dominates  the  thought  and  feeling  of  our  modern 
world.  The  most  intelligent  and  progressive  part 
of  mankind  date  their  letters,  count  time,  from 
the  year  of  his  birth. 

Yet  herein  lies  the  deepest  mystery,  for  he  had 
none  of  the  external  advantages  which  men 
think  necessary  to  such  vast  influence.  He  came 
of  a  despised  race.  He  was  born  of  the  peasant 
class.  He  lived  nearly  all  his  hfe  in  an  obscure 
town  of  a  frontier  province.  He  never  had  what 
either  his  Graeco-Roman  or  Jewish  contem- 
poraries would  have  called  an  education.  It 
cannot  be  proved  that  he  ever  read  any  book 
except  the  Old  Testament,  or  that  he  ever  studied 
the  philosophers  of  Greece.     He  grew  up  under 


«■     •    *■  V   »     I     *     c     '  «    " 

THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 


the  blighting  shadow  of  a  fanatical  and  bigoted 
religiosity.  He  never  traveled  a  hundred  miles 
from  his  home;  nor,  until  his  fate  was  practically 
sealed,  did  he  ever  see  any  country  other  than 
his  own.  He  had  no  money  or  any  desire  to 
make  money.  He  had  no  powerful  or  cultivated 
friends.  He  eschewed  politics.  He  championed 
no  popular  social  reforms.  He  stirred  up  no  class 
conflict.  He  never  led  an  army,  or  wrote  a 
book,  or  founded  a  school.  He  never  invoked 
the  aid  of  art,  music  or  literature.  He  either  was 
shut  out  from  all  the  avenues  that  in  the  experi- 
ence of  men  lead  to  greatness,  or  he  refused  to  use 
them.  His  whole  public  activity  extended  over 
little  more  than  three  years,  quite  possibly  two, 
perhaps  only  one.  He  was  only  thirty-five  or  six  at 
most  when  he  died.  His  teachings  antagonized  the 
religious  traditions,  the  cherished  political  hopes 
of  his  people,  the  interests  of  the  higher  classes, 
and  all  the  ingrained  selfishness  of  humanity. 
He  continually  disappointed  his  followers  and 
even  his  dearest  friends.  He  was  finally  betrayed 
by  one  of  his  own  disciples,  and  was  crucified 
between  two  robbers,  suffering  the  most  shame- 
ful death  known  to  that  age. 


THE  POWER  BEHIND  THE  HISTORY  3 

And  now  the  mystery  begins.  He  had  hardly 
stepped  out  into  public  life,  when  all  felt  that 
some  extraordinary  person  had  come  upon  the 
scene.  In  a  few  weeks  he  had  focused  the  atten- 
tion of  the  nation  on  himself.  Multitudes  hung 
upon  his  lips.  The  leading  men  of  the  Jews  soon 
found  it  necessary  to  journey  to  Galilee  to  op- 
pose this  young  man,  who  was  like  to  steal  their 
authority  over  night.  The  crowds  began  to  think 
him  another  Elijah  or  Jeremiah,  and  even  to 
wonder  sometimes  whether  he  might  not  be  the 
Messiah.  Contrary  to  rule,  his  most  familiar 
friends,  his  daily  table-companions,  were  more 
impressed  than  those  who  knew  him  less  inti- 
mately. They  accepted  him  as  their  teacher, 
prophet  and  king.  They  found  no  stain  of  sin, 
no  shadow  of  impurity  in  him.  They  hailed 
him  as  Messiah,  although  he  was  so  different 
from  what  they  expected  the  Messiah  to  be, 
and  by  that  name  they  meant  nothing  less  than 
that  he  was  God's  special  Representative  on 
earth,  the  Founder  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven, 
the  Bringer  of  Salvation  and  the  Final  Judge  of 
Men.  After  his  death,  it  did  not  seem  unnatural 
to  them  that  he  should  have  risen  from  the  dead, 


4  THE  MAN   OF   NAZARETH 

nor  incongruous  with  what  they  knew  of  him 
that  he  should  be  sitting  at  God's  right  hand. 
They  confessed  him  as  the  Good  Shepherd,  the 
Light  of  the  World,  the  Prince  of  Life,  the  Son 
of  God.  They  said  that  they  had  beheld  his 
glory,  glory  as  of  the  Only  Begotten  of  the  Father, 
full  of  grace  and  truth.  And  soon  a  multitude 
of  Jews  and  heathen,  wise  and  fools,  declared 
that  he  was  the  strength  of  their  life,  the  Savior 
of  their  souls,  and  that  they  had  seen  the  glory 
of  God  in  his  face.  "This  fact,  which  is  as  plain 
as  day,"  says  Professor  Harnack,  '^is  unique  in 
history,  and  demands  that  the  personality  which 
lies  behind  it  should  be  regarded  as  unique." 

These  wonderful  ascriptions  of  an  almost  di- 
vine power  and  glory  were  soon  matched  by  the 
facts  of  history.  The  impulse  of  this  powerful 
personality  began  to  make  itself  felt  throughout 
the  world.  Within  two  months  after  his  death, 
three  thousand  men  and  women  enthusiastically 
joined  his  cause  in  the  very  city  in  which  he  had 
been  executed  as  a  criminal.  His  influence  ex- 
tended in  ever  widening  circles.  It  leaped  the 
barrier  of  a  narrow  Judaism  and  entered  upon  a 
career  of  conquest  in   the   Gentile  world.     His 


THE  POWER  BEHIND  THE  HISTORY  $ 

followers  gladly  suffered  imprisonment,  torture 
and  death  for  his  sake.  The  bitterest  persecu- 
tions only  fanned  the  flame  and  scattered  the 
conflagration.  The  spiritual  enthusiasm  spread 
like  a  prairie  fire  till  the  whole  Roman  Empire 
was  ablaze.  The  ablest  and  most  thorough  of 
the  early  persecutors  was  struck  down,  and  be- 
came the  most  devoted  of  his  followers,  the  most 
successful  missionary  of  the  faith.  Within  thirty- 
five  years  of  Jesus*  death,  a  Roman  emperor  was 
burning  Christians  at  the  stake  in  his  own  gar- 
dens in  the  distant  capital  of  the  world.  Jesus 
had  against  him  the  power,  the  culture,  the  reli- 
gion, the  pride,  the  self-interest,  the  prejudices, 
the  traditions  and  all  the  selfish  passions  of  the 
greatest,  the  richest,  the  most  magnificent  civiliza- 
tion that  man  up  to  that  time  had  produced. 
But  after  a  two  hundred  and  fifty  year  contest 
in  which  all  these  tremendous  forces  fought  with 
the  energy  of  despair,  the  Roman  Empire  at 
last  surrendered.  The  Galilean  peasant  had 
conquered.  Emperors,  at  least  nominally  Chris- 
tian, occupied  the  seat  of  Nero  and  Diocletian. 
The  completeness  of  the  triumph  is  strikingly 
evidenced  by  the  facts  that  the  priceless  marbles 


6  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

which  once  adorned  the  throne-room  of  the  ruth- 
less persecutor,  Domitian,  on  the  Palatine,  are 
today  the  pride  of  the  Church  of  Jesus  in  the 
valley  below  the  Capitoline,  and  that  the  most 
magnificent  Christian  cathedral  in  the  world 
stands  in  the  very  gardens  once  lighted  by  the 
fires  of  Nero's  victims. 

By  simply  associating  them  with  himself,  Jesus 
changed  the  humble  fishermen  of  Galilee  from 
ordinary  men  into  the  leaders  of  a  new  and  world- 
wide movement,  and  has  made  them  famous  for 
all  time.  More  people  read  Peter,  John  and 
Matthew  today  than  read  Homer,  Virgil  or 
Shakespeare.  We  call  our  children  John,  James, 
Philip  and  Thomas,  and  the  name  of  the  mother 
of  Jesus  is  the  commonest  of  all.  A  Johnson 
has  been  President  of  the  United  States.  An 
Andrewson  is  writing  these  lines.  The  Jamesons, 
the  Matthews,  the  Phillipses,  the  Thompsons  and 
the  Petersons  are  a  great  host.  These  obscure 
disciples  are  honored  by  cities  like  St.  John, 
St.  Paul  and  St.  Petersburg;  while  the  most 
beautiful  and  stately  buildings  of  Christendom 
bear  their  names,  St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  St.  Paul's 
in  London  and  St.  John  the  Divine  in  New  York. 


THE  POWER  BEHIND  THE  HISTORY  7 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  these  names  are 
beginning  to  invade  India,  China  and  Japan. 

No  character  of  the  past  exerts  so  direct  and 
vast  an  influence  on  the  present  world  as  Jesus. 
The  movement  to  which  his  personality  gave  the 
initial  impulse  has  outlived  all  contemporary  gov- 
ernments, philosophies  and  social  systems,  has  en- 
dured all  the  vicissitudes  of  nineteen  centuries, 
has  crossed  all  the  oceans,  has  invaded  every  con- 
tinent, is  strongest  in  the  world's  foremost  nations 
and  never  was  more  intelligent,  more  spiritual, 
more  powerful  or  more  hopeful  than  it  is  today. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  features  of  Chris- 
tianity is  her  faculty  of  self-criticism  and  self- 
purification.  In  this  she  seems  ahnost  to  repro- 
duce the  functions  of  a  living  thing  in  throwing 
off  what  is  useless  and  effete.  The  impulse  and 
the  power  are  from  within.  Thus  she  renewed 
herself  in  the  Reformation,  and  again  in  the  Wes- 
leyan  revival.  In  fact  the  process  is  continually 
going  on,  not  only  in  the  body  as  a  whole,  but 
in  each  living  section  of  it.  Outworn  forms  are 
cast  aside,  ancient  traditions  fade,  doctrines  are 
modified.     Christianity  is  always  digging  deeper 


8  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

foundations  for  her  faith.  The  apologetic  which 
once  satisfied  has  begun  to  seem  superficial  and 
inadequate.  Much  she  once  thought  essential, 
she  now  sees  was  not  the  essence  after  all.  Ever 
deeper,  deeper,  deeper  she  goes,  until  she  founds 
her  faith  on  the  granite  rock  of  reality.  This 
means  progress  and  true  growth.  It  is  not  the 
sacrifice  of  faith,  but  a  truer  valuation  and  ap- 
preciation of  it. 

Christianity  is  also  constantly  broadening  her 
outlook.  More  and  more  she  sees  with  Paul  that 
all  things  are  hers,  because  she  is  Christ's  and 
Christ  is  God's.  She  breaks  the  shell  of  Judaism, 
she  travels  from  Asia  to  Europe.  She  survives 
the  dissolution  of  the  Roman  Empire  through 
the  conversion  of  the  northern  barbarians.  She 
finds  herself  able  to  cut  loose  from  the  papacy, 
and  at  last  from  alliance  with  the  state.  She 
crosses  the  ocean  to  a  new  world.  Finally  she 
begins  to  take  in  earnest  the  missionary  call  and 
the  missionary  hope,  and  is  now  seeing  what  is 
really  the  beginning  of  a  universal  break-up  of 
heathenism.  She  recognizes  the  opportunity  for 
intensive  as  well  as  extensive  growth.  She  lays 
claim  to  the  secular  as  well  as  to  the  religious 


THE  POWER  BEHIND   THE  HISTORY  9 

sphere.  She  takes  all  life  as  her  empire,  and  looks 
forward  to  the  day,  when  not  only  the  inner  life 
and  the  home,  but  business,  politics,  education, 
art,  music,  literature  and  the  whole  social  order 
shall  be  Christian.  Thus  she  strengthens  and 
nourishes  her  hope.  Her  visions  grow  larger  and 
more  glorious  with  the  ongoing  years.  Her  task 
seems  ever  greater  and  more  fundamental  and 
more  essential  to  the  good  of  men.  She  realizes 
herself  as  the  Light  of  the  World. 

She  is  the  surer  of  this,  for  she  finds  in  herself 
an  amazing  ability  to  adapt  herself  to  new  situa- 
tions. Beginning  as  a  simple,  unreasoning  Jewish 
faith,  she  was  able  to  present  herself  to  an  age 
dominated  by  Stoicism  and  Neoplatonism,  and 
to  wear  what  seemed  to  the  men  of  that  day  a 
familiar  face.  When  Scholasticism  came  in,  she 
was  a  Scholastic,  and  at  the  Renaissance  still 
knew  how  to  be  in  fashion.  So  the  history  has 
gone  on  until,  in  our  own  age,  she  seems  to  be 
thriving  on  biblical  criticism,  the  conceptions 
of  the  new  science  and  the  philosophy  of  evolu- 
tion. And  yet  she  is  always  herself.  In  all  these 
different  forms,  she  is  seeking  and  finding  some- 
thing  to   round   out   and   complete   her   truth. 


lO  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

Fashions  in  philosophy  come,  and  fashions  in 
philosophy  go,  but  she  goes  on  forever.  From 
each  fashion  she  gains  some  advantage,  but  casts 
the  fashions  aside,  when  they  no  longer  help  her 
to  make  herself  known  to  men.  Just  now  she 
is  getting  ready  to  emphasize  her  pragmatic  side; 
and  she  is  strong  there.  She  feels  sure  that  no 
discovery  of  truth  can  ever  disconcert  or  harm 
her,  for  she  knows  that  in  her  experience  of  union 
with  Jesus  and  communion  with  God  she  has 
touched  the  rock  bottom  of  life.  Thus  she  is 
certain  of  ultimate  victory.  She  knows  that 
when  the  world  gets  through  with  all  its  experi- 
ments, it  is  bound  to  come  back  to  her  and  her 
experience  of  God  through  Jesus. 

Our  whole  point  is  this,  that  all  this  power  of 
self-purification,  all  this  capacity  for  profounder 
insight  and  growing  vision,  all  this  adaptability  to 
human  hearts  and  minds  in  every  age,  all  this  stir 
of  hope  and  certainty  of  faith,  in  short,  all  this 
actuality  and  potency  of  life  she  constantly  refers 
to  the  spirit  and  power  of  Jesus  working  in  her. 
In  him  and  him  alone  she  recognizes  the  source 
and  impulse  of  her  vital  energy. 

Jesus'  influence  on  our  own  age  may  also  be 


THE  POWER  BEHIND  THE  HISTORY  II 

seen  in  the  fact  that  he  lays  hold  of  men  today 
just  as  truly  and  wonderfully  as  he  laid  hold  of 
Paul  on  the  road  to  Damascus,  or  Augustine  in 
the  garden  at  Milan.  These  marvels  never  cease, 
and  science  and  sociology  are  at  last  taking  them 
seriously.  Professor  James  in  his  Varieties  of 
Religious  Experience  and  Begbie  in  his  Twice 
Born  Men  have  called  the  world's  attention  again 
to  this  common,  world-wide  phenomenon. '  Such 
conversions  occur  in  Chicago  and  Pekin,  in  Lon- 
don and  Madras,  in  Madagascar  and  New  Zea- 
land, in  Greenland  and  on  the  Congo;  and  not 
only  among  the  degenerates  of  our  own  civiliza- 
tion and  those  sunk  in  heathen  superstition,  but 
also  among  the  educated  and  prosperous.  I  some- 
times contemplate  rivaling  Begbie  with  a  book 
on  Twice  Born  Respectables,  I  have  a  super- 
abundance of  material  for  it.  But  Jesus  lays 
hold  of  John  and  Andrew  none  the  less  surely 
than  he  does  of  Paul.  Though  in  such  cases  the 
experience  is  quieter  and  not  calculated  to  sum- 
mon and  fix  the  attention  of  men,  yet  the  life 
is  just  as  truly  moulded  and  shaped,  just  as 
thoroughly,  though  not  as  strikingly,  changed. 
There   are   millions   of   Christians   of   this   type, 


12  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

and  they  do  not  yield  in  devotion  or  faith  to 
those  of  the  other  sort. 

With  one  voice  they  all  testify,  men  of  every 
temperament,  of  every  age,  of  every  race  and 
of  every  social  condition,  that  Jesus  has  drawn 
them  to  himself,  has  made  them  moral  victors, 
has  led  them  into  communion  with  the  Father, 
has  given  unity  to  their  lives,  has  furnished  them 
with  a  new  and  infinitely  worthy  motive  and 
purpose,  has  filled  them  with  love  to  their  fellows, 
has  inspired  in  them  the  ideals  of  a  new  humanity 
in  a  new  society,  and  has  put  into  their  hearts 
the  faith  that  overcomes  the  world. 

This  life  relation  with  Jesus  his  followers  count 
their  greatest  blessing,  their  most  sacred  treasure, 
the  unspeakable  gift.  And,  when  occasion  pre- 
sents itself,  they  offer  an  indisputable  proof  of 
the  value  they  set  upon  it.  "All  that  a  man  hath 
will  he  give  for  his  life,"  is  an  ancient  proverb, 
and  it  is  nearly  the  truth.  But  there  are  some 
things  more  precious  than  life,  and  this  blessing 
which  Jesus  gives  his  followers  is  one  of  them. 
Rather  than  seem  untrue  to  him  the  Giver,  today, 
as  during  all  the  centuries  of  the  past,  they  will 
endure  supreme  tortures  and  death  in  its  most 


THE  POWER  BEHIND  THE  HISTORY  I3 

dreadful  forms.  Doughty,  the  English  University 
explorer  of  Arabia,  so  radical  in  his  views  that 
many  old-fashioned  saints  would  almost  deny 
him  the  Christian  name,  spent  years  absolutely 
alone  among  the  fanatical  Musselmen,  but,  unlike 
other  western  travelers  in  those  lands,  he  scorned 
to  hide  the  fact  that  he  was  a  Christian,  and 
openly  approached  the  very  walls  of  Mecca. 
His  life  was  in  daily  danger.  The  horrid  bigotry 
of  the  Arabs  made  every  night's  sleep  a  peril, 
and  yet,  as  he  says,  he  could  never  make  up  his 
mind  "to  deny  the  dear  name  of  Jesus,"  even 
when  threatened  with  imminent  and  instant 
death. 

The  Christian  boys  of  Uganda  in  Africa  pre- 
ferred to  bum  at  the  stake  rather  than  renounce 
their  lately  found  Savior,  and  they  died  singing 
amid  the  flames.  The  followers  of  Jesus  in 
Madagascar  allowed  themselves  to  be  thrown  over 
precipices  to  the  rocks  below,  although  one  com- 
promising word  would  have  saved  them.  Whole 
families  of  humble  Russian  peasants,  after  years 
of  harassing  persecution,  have  tramped  the 
thousand  miles  to  Siberia  across  the  barren  plains 
in  the  face  of  bitter  winds  and,  after  suffering  all 


14  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

privations,  have  starved  to  death  in  proof  of  the 
value  they  set  upon  the  light  and  life  which 
Jesus  had  brought  to  their  souls.  And  in  our 
century,  ten  thousand  Chinese  men,  women  and 
children  laid  down  their  lives  in  the  anti-christian 
uprisings  in  China.  One  word  of  repudiation  of 
Jesus,  only  a  word,  would  have  given  them  life, 
but  that  word  they  would  not  speak.  The  allied 
troops  found  the  whited  bones  of  hundreds  of 
Christians  in  the  palace  gardens  of  Prince  Chuang 
in  Pekin,  mute  and  glorious  witnesses  of  the  power 
and  blessing  of  Jesus  in  our  own  age.  Indeed, 
there  is  no  living  king,  emperor  or  leader,  who 
today  could  summon  so  large  a  host  of  devoted 
volunteers,  ready  to  live  or  die  for  him,  as  Jesus. 
The  power  of  Jesus  in  society  continually  in- 
creases. He  somehow  created  a  new  moral  and 
spiritual  atmosphere  in  the  world  and  a  new  type 
of  human  character.  Sins,  that  stalked  un- 
ashamed before  he  lived  and  died,  have  indeed 
survived,  but  they  have  never  recovered  caste, 
and  some  of  them  are  now  almost  unknown  in 
Christian  lands.  In  Jesus  mankind  made  a  dis- 
tinct moral  advance  and  has  ever  since,  despite 
all  waverings  and  backslidings,  Hved  on  a  higher 


THE  POWER  BEHIND  THE  HISTORY  1 5 

plane.  Lecky  has  well  said,  ''The  simple  record 
of  three  short  years  of  active  life  has  done  more 
to  regenerate  and  soften  mankind  than  all  the 
disquisitions  of  philosophers  and  all  the  exhor- 
tations of  moralists.  In  the  character  of  its 
Founder,  the  church  has  an  enduring  principle  of 
regeneration.''  With  Jesus'  insistence  on  the 
seriousness  of  life  and  his  appreciation  of  the 
infinite  value  of  a  single  human  soul,  there  was 
ushered  in  a  new  civilization,  rightly  called  Chris- 
tian. With  the  elevation  of  woman  and  the  pas- 
sion for  purity,  both  originating  with  him,  there 
was  created  the  Christian  home.  Just  before  Jesus 
was  bom,  liberty  died  in  the  Graeco-Roman 
world,  but  he  gave  it  a  new  reason  for  existence, 
and,  more  than  any  other,  he  is  responsible  for 
the  modern  revival  of  democracy.  It  is  his  spirit, 
which  has  abolished  slavery  and  duelling,  which 
frowns  on  cruelty  and  oppression,  which  is  be- 
hind all  the  forces  of  justice,  mercy  and  brother- 
hood, which  is  making  unrelenting  war  on  all  the 
forces  of  evil.  He  is  at  the  bottom  of  much  of 
our  social  unrest.  His  spirit  stirs  us  to  bring  in 
the  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  joy  and  peace. 
He  has  entered  into  the  warp  and  woof  of  our 


l6  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

social  life.  As  Bushnell  says,  "It  were  easier  to 
untwist  all  the  beams  of  light  in  the  sky  and  to 
separate  and  expunge  one  of  the  primary  colors, 
than  to  get  the  character  of  Jesus,  which  is  the 
true  gospel,  out  of  the  world." 

His  utterly  unexpected  triumphs  in  recent 
years  nourish  the  faith  of  his  followers  that  the 
day  is  approaching  when  he  shall  rule  universally 
in  the  hearts  of  men.  His  cause  seems  to  be 
gaining  an  almost  irresistible  momentum.  His 
final  victory  is  changing  from  being  a  matter  of 
religious  faith  into  being  a  matter  of  rational 
probability.  These  advances  are  inextricably  in- 
tertwined with  selfish  motives,  and  disappoint 
those  idealists  who  do  not  understand  that  the 
history  of  all  progress  is  like  that  of  a  flowing 
tide,  whose  new  high  water  marks  alternate 
with  ebbings.  Recently  the  incoming  waves  have 
reached  points  hitherto  unknown.  A  universal, 
idealistic,  democratic,  essentially  Christian  move- 
ment seems  to  be  encircling  the  globe,  breaking 
out  here  and  there  only  to  be  suppressed.  All 
mature  observers  rejoice  in  the  new  high  records 
of  progress,  and  understand  that  the  retrogressions 
are  merely  temporary.    The  next  wave  is  bound 


THE   POWER  BEHIND   THE  HISTORY  1 7 

to  go  higher  still.  ^  The  dethronement  of  that 
old  serpent,  Abdul  Hamid,  by  the  Young  Turks 
in  1909  and  the  reign  of  the  original  Committee 
of  Order  and  Progress  in  the  Ottoman  Empire 
was  an  event  of  the  highest  and  most  cheering 
significance.  The  national  rising  against  despo- 
tism in  effete  Persia  and  the  proof  that  thousands 
there  were  willing  to  die,  as  they  said,  "for  the 
sweet  name  of  liberty,"  was  beyond  the  faith 
of  the  most  confirmed  optimists.  To  her  shame 
England  has  helped  Russia  put  out  that  light, 
but  Persia  and  the  world  can  never  be  the  same 
again.  The  appeal  of  the  Japanese  Minister  of 
Education  to  the  Christian  missionaries  to  help 
solve  the  moral  problems  of  the  Empire  was 
plainly  a  turn  in  the  tide.  Most  amazing  of  all 
was  the  mighty  change  in  China.  The  West  is 
still  dumbfounded  at  the  thought  of  a  great 
Chinese  Republic,  and  most  fittingly  its  provi- 
sional President  was  a  Christian.  Who  could 
have  believed  it  ten  years  ago?  Today  the 
Crescent  flaps  feebly  in  the  breeze  behind  its  last 

*  Since  these  sentences  were  in  print,  the  general  European 
war  of  19 14  has  broken  out.  The  author,  however,  on  mature 
reflection  sees  no  reason  for  changing  the  wording.  Often  the 
greatest  ebb  precedes  the  greatest  flow. 


l8  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

breastworks  in  Europe.  The  old,  corrupt  Mo- 
hammedanism is  sinking  to  irremediable  ruin. 
Whether  the  Young  Turks  can  create  a  new 
Mohammedanism,  more  in  accord  with  Chris- 
tian ideals  and  the  thought  of  Jesus,  remains  to 
be  seen.  It  is  the  only  hope  the  Levantine  world 
has  of  avoiding  Christian  domination.  All  this 
is  partial,  stained  with  sordidness,  baseness  and 
blood,  subject  to  temporary  reverses,  and  yet  it 
is  a  wave  of  idealism,  the  pulse  of  a  new  life, 
the  splendid  promise  of  a  better  world,  and  its 
ultimate  source  is  Jesus.  His  teaching  and  his 
spirit  irresistibly  press  the  nations  forward.  He 
is  marching  on. 

All  this  accords  with  the  philosophy  of  our 
time.  We  do  not  minimize  the  influence  of  ideas, 
slowly  trickling  down  from  the  few  into  the 
minds  of  the  many  until  they  become  a  part  of 
Kfe  and  sometimes  decide  the  fate  of  nations  and 
of  ages.  Nor  do  we  forget  those  strange,  almost 
inexplicable  mass  movements  of  human  minds, 
which  presage  new  epochs.  Still  the  truth  re- 
mains, and  without  it  no  history  can  be  rightly 
written,  that  the  sharp  turning  points  in  human 


THE  POWER  BEHIND  THE  HISTORY  1 9 

progress  have  been  due  to  great  events  and  the 
rise  of  great  personalities. 

The  political  evolution  naturally  led  up  to 
Napoleon,  but  when  he  unexpectedly  appeared, 
he  changed  the  whole  course  of  the  time,  remade 
the  map  of  Europe,  and  brought  in  a  new  era. 
With  the  French  Revolution  and  Napoleon,  his- 
tory turned  a  sharp  corner.  The  world  could 
never  move  along  in  the  old  groove  again  after 
the  execution  of  Louis  XVI.  and  the  battle  of 
Austerlitz. 

The  Spanish-American  war  was  not  much  of  a 
war,  but  it  has  had  the  profoundest  influence  on 
our  national  life.  Nothing  could  have  been  more 
unforeseen  than  the  battle  of  Manila,  yet  it 
woke  this  country  on  that  first  of  May  to  a  new 
vision,  a  new  duty  and  a  new  career.  If  an  in- 
telligent American  had  gone  to  sleep  in  1897  ^^^ 
awaked  in  1899,  ^^  could  not  have  believed  that 
one  brief  year  could  have  produced  so  great  a 
change.  This  little  war  was  a  momentous  event. 
It  made  the  United  States  a  world  power,  and 
has  brought  about  a  new  national  feeling  which 
has  been  and  will  be  of  tremendous  import. 

In  the  middle  of  the  last  century   Germany 


20  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

was  a  chaos  of  mutually  jealous  states,  but  Bis- 
marck rose,  unified  them  into  the  strongest  mili- 
tary empire  of  our  time,  and  gave  the  German 
people  the  stimulus,  which  makes  them  today 
everywhere  feared  as  business  rivals.  His  iron 
will,  his  masterly  diplomacy,  his  courage  to  fight 
at  the  right  time,  his  ability  to  inspire  a  whole 
race,  in  short,  this  one  man  permanently  altered 
the  course  of  European  history,  and  no  one  doubts 
that  his  mighty  personality,  however  many  helpers 
he  may  have  had,  was  primarily  aloneresponsible. 

What  was  it  that  changed  the  history  of  the 
world  in  the  first  century? 

It  would  perhaps  be  fair  to  our  fathers  to  say 
that  most  of  them  answered,  Christianity,  and 
by  this  they  usually  meant  a  certain  system  of 
truths,  which  they  regarded  as  then  for  the 
first  time  revealed  and  proclaimed.  A  great  deal 
of  stress  was  laid  on  the  originality  of  the  revela- 
tion as  proof  of  its  divine  character.  But  the 
scholars  went  to  work  on  this  proposition,  and 
they  have  shown  that  many  New  Testament  ideas 
were  derived  from  the  Old  Testament,  that  there 
are  the  most  striking  parallels  to  many  more  in 
the    uncanonical    prechristian    Jewish    literature, 


THE  POWER  BEHIND  THE  HISTORY  21 

that  Greek,  Persian,  Indian  and  Chinese  sages 
had  had  some  of  the  same  thoughts,  that  some- 
what contemporary  mysteries  had  rites  and  ideas 
surprisingly  like  the  Christian.  Thus  critical  in- 
vestigation seemed  to  have  disproved  the  unique- 
ness of  Christianity,  and  some  Christians,  much 
disturbed,  began  to  doubt  whether  anything  very 
remarkable  had  happened  in  the  first  century 
after  all. 

But  when  the  new  scientific  historical  school 
came  in,  they  perceived  that  in  spite  of  all  that 
had  been  shown,  something  of  an  epoch-making 
character  had  occurred  in  the  first  century.  They 
traced  Christianity  back  and  they  found  that  it 
had  its  source  in  a  great  personality.  Chris- 
tianity is  the  most  powerful  moral  and  religious 
force  in  the  world  today,  and  has  been,  so  far 
as  Europe  is  concerned,  for  nineteen  centuries. 
Such  a  movement  must  have  an  adequate  cause, 
and  no  other  adequate  cause  has  ever  been  dis- 
covered except  the  personality  of  Jesus.  There- 
fore he  must  be  great  enough  to  produce  this 
age-long  and  world-wide  effect.  There  are  limits 
beyond  which  radical  criticism  cannot  go  and 
remain    scientific.     So    Professor  Schmiedel,  one 


22  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

of  the  foremost  radical  critics,  said  to  me  in 
Ziirich,  "We  may  nibble  away  at  the  character 
of  Jesus,  but  we  must  at  least  leave  a  suf- 
ficient initial  impulse  for  this  great  and  living 
thing  called  Christianity." 

The  personality  of  the  Man  of  Nazareth,  then, 
is  the  power  behind  the  Christian  history. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    SITUATION   IN    WHICH   JESUS   FOUND   HIMSELF 

Two  great  factors  formed  the  background  of 
life  in  the  first  century,  Greek  civiKzation  and 
Roman  rule.  Alexander  had  carried  the  Greek 
language  and  Greek  culture  to  the  Orient  and 
his  great  empire  had  virtually  become  a  Greek 
world.  Even  the  remoter  districts  were  more  or 
less  strongly  influenced.  Over  this  Greek  world, 
Rome  had  extended  its  political  sway.  Men  of 
our  time  are  not  likely  to  overestimate  the  power 
and  efficiency  of  the  Roman  government  at  this 
period.  It  knit  the  various  countries  around  the 
Mediterranean  into  one  great  compact  body  poli- 
tic, whose  vigorous  heart  beat  in  Italy  and  sent 
the  impulses  of  its  authority  to  the  furthest 
boundaries. 

When  Jesus  began  his  ministry,  Palestine  had 
been  virtually  Roman  for  nearly  a  hundred 
years,  and  composed  part  of  the  eastern  frontier 
of  the  Empire.     Judea  and  Samaria  for  more 

23 


24  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

than  twenty  years  had  constituted  a  Roman 
province  of  the  second  or  third  class  under  a 
Roman  governor,  called  a  procurator.  Galilee  and 
Perea  for  more  than  thirty  years  had  been  ruled 
by  Herod  Antipas,  the  tetrarch,  a  son  of  Herod 
the  Great,  but  he  was  a  mere  underling  of  the 
Romans.  The  northeastern  part  of  Palestine  had 
been  for  the  same  period  under  similar  conditions 
the  dominion  of  Philip,  the  tetrarch,  a  half- 
brother  of  Antipas. 

The  government  of  these  rulers,  while  despotic 
and  often  arbitrary,  was  on  the  whole  firm  and 
just,  and  left  much  power  in  the  hands  of  Jewish 
magistrates  and  courts.  For  more  than  twenty 
years,  there  had  been  practically  uninterrupted 
peace,  and  Palestine  consequently  was  populous, 
busy  and  rich.  Jesus  taught  during  a  time  of 
business  prosperity.  This  was  especially  true  of 
Gahlee. 

The  Jews  of  Jesus'  time  were  much  like  the 
orthodox  Jews  of  today,  except  that  they  were 
neither  poor  nor  persecuted.  Their  two  greatest 
interests  were  religion  and  money-making.  Je- 
rusalem was  the  religious  and  political  center; 
the  seat  of  the  temple,  the  Sanhedrin  and  the 


JESUS'  SITUATION  2$ 

priesthood.  It  was  ecclesiastical,  formal,  con- 
servative, proud  and  intolerant.  Galilee  was 
freer  in  its  religious  and  social  life,  capable  of 
initiative  and  self-sacrifice,  bold,  courageous,  un- 
sophisticated, unspoiled.  The  people  to  whom 
Jesus  appealed  were  imcompromising  monotheists, 
had  no  doubts  of  God,  and  were  equally  sure  of  the 
divine  origin  of  the  Old  Testament.  These  things 
were  taken  for  granted  in  all  his  teaching.  His 
situation  and  task  were  radically  different  in  these 
respects  from  ours. 

Though  a  frontier  province,  Palestine  had 
many  Greek  cities,  and  was  truly  in  the  life  of 
the  Empire.  Yet  the  Jews  as  a  whole,  though 
inevitably  influenced  by  Gentile  life  and  thought, 
most  of  them  indeed  speaking  Greek,  resolutely 
set  themselves  against  everything  Gentile,  as  do 
the  orthodox  Jews  of  today,  and  so  far  as  pos- 
sible lived  in  a  world  of  their  own. 

This  little  Jewish  world  was  divided  by  parties. 
Of  these,  the  Sadducees  were  the  rich,  aristocratic, 
rationalistic,  worldly  party,  made  up  principally 
of  priests  and  their  retainers,  with  the  High 
Priest  at  their  head.  Their  S3anpathies  were 
with  the  Romans.    They  were  a  small,  compact, 


26  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

powerful  coterie,  in  political  control  at  Jerusalem 
and  in  the  Sanhedrin,  but  not  largely  influential 
with  the  people,  or  numerous  outside  the  capital. 
They  opposed  the  Pharisees  doctrinally  on  tra- 
ditionalism, the  life  after  death  and  predestina- 
tion. Apart  from  his  last  week  in  Jerusalem, 
this  party  is  comparatively  unimportant  for  the 
life  and  thought  of  Jesus.  Its  interest  was  in 
political  power  and  wealth. 

The  Pharisees  formed  a  fraternity  of  some- 
thing over  six  thousand  members,  and  were  the 
nucleus  of  an  influence  which  dominated  the  reli- 
gious life  of  the  whole  nation.  They  were  the 
true  leaders  of  the  people,  and,  on  that  very 
account,  though  a  minority  in  the  Sanhedrin, 
practically  dictated  the  action  of  that  body.  A 
Pharisee  was  one  who  set  himself  to  obey  all  the 
prescriptions  of  the  law,  plus  the  endless  interpre- 
tations of  the  scribes,  which  they  held  to  be  of 
equal  validity.  These  interpretations  referred  par- 
ticularly to  the  law  of  clean  and  unclean  (es- 
pecially to  the  items  concerning  food,  and  contact 
with  unclean  persons),  to  the  Sabbath,  and  to 
tithes,  fasting  and  prayers.  Obedience  was  the 
soul  of  piety.    The  law  and  its  external  perform- 


JESUS'  SITUATION  27 

ance  filled  the  whole  mental  and  spiritual  horizon, 
and  discouraged  every  attempt  to  realize  com- 
munion with  God  or  to  nourish  sympathy  with 
men.  Ethics  was  practically  sacrificed  to  exter- 
nalized religion.  Pride  covered  the  Pharisees  as  a 
garment,  but  they  were  not  esoteric.  They  made 
every  effort  to  teach  the  law  to  all  Israelites,  in 
school,  in  synagogue  and  by  the  wayside.  They 
compassed  sea  and  land  to  make  one  proselyte. 
They  earnestly  longed  for  the  golden  day  when 
Israel  would  keep  the  law  and  the  traditions.  The 
whole  interest  of  the  Pharisee  was  in  law-keeping. 
His  only  care  in  politics  was  to  secure  a  situation 
favorable  to  legalism.  The  Pharisees  were  a  re- 
ligious and  not  a  political  party. 

The  Zealots  would  not  have  called  themselves 
a  distinct  party,  being,  like  the  rest  of  the  people, 
admirers  of  the  Pharisees.  They  were  principally 
Galileans,  and  believed  that  it  was  a  shame  for 
Israel,  the  elect  nation,  destined  to  rule  the  world, 
to  pay  taxes  or  bow  down  to  a  heathen  power. 
They  were  ready  to  revolt  against  Rome  at  any 
time,  waiting  only  for  a  leader.  They  did  not 
expect  to  be  able  to  overcome  the  world  empire 
alone,  but  thought  that  if  they  began  the  in- 


28  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

surrection,  God  would  send  the  Messiah  with 
his  supernatural  powers  to  their  aid.  The  Sad- 
ducees  and  the  more  conservative  Judean  Phari- 
sees frowned  on  these  ideas,  but  the  common 
people  and  the  less  important  Pharisees  secretly 
favored  them,  until  Zealotism  plunged  the  nation 
into  the  war  of  66-70.  When  the  fighting  began, 
Galilee  offered  the  most  stubborn  resistance  to 
Vespasian,  and  Galileans  were  the  last  desperate 
defenders  of  Jerusalem  and  Masada.  It  is  easily 
seen  how  hazardous  this  Zealot  feeling  rendered 
Jesus'  Messianic  work  in  Galilee,  and  conse- 
quently Zealotism,  which  was  a  robust  nationalism, 
is  one  of  the  main  factors  in  the  situation. 

The  Messianic  hope  was  active  in  Palestine 
in  the  time  of  Jesus.  It  was  derived  almost 
wholly  from  the  Old  Testament,  but  there  were 
many  different  opinions  as  to  what  sort  of  person 
the  Messiah  would  be  and  just  what  he  would 
do.  Possibly  the  best  general  statement  is  that 
the  Jews  expected  the  Messiah  to  be  God's 
special  Representative  on  earth,  the  B ringer  of 
Salvation,  the  Founder  of  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
and  the  final  Judge  of  Men.  Each  party  would 
desire,  however,  to  interpret  these  phrases  and 


JESUS'  SITUATION  29 

modify  them  in  its  own  way.  Yet  the  people 
generally  expected  the  Messiah  to  be  a  human, 
Davidic  King,  to  destroy  IsraePs  enemies,  es- 
pecially Rome,  to  judge  the  world,  to  establish 
a  universal  Jewish  empire  with  Jerusalem  as  its 
capital,  and  thereafter  to  reign  in  righteousness 
and  peace.  The  Sadducees  desired  no  Messiah. 
The  Pharisees  waited  for  God  to  take  the  initia- 
tive, on  condition  that  Israel  kept  the  law.  The 
Zealots  would  take  the  initiative  themselves,  ex- 
pecting God  to  reward  their  faith  by  sending  the 
Messiah  to  help  them.  Jesus  satisfied  none  of 
these  expectations. 

There  existed  in  Judaism  an  apocalyptic  litera- 
ture, which  professed  to  unveil  to  the  oppressed 
people  of  God  the  future  and  the  unseen  world. 
The  books  which  especially  interest  us  are  the 
Books  of  Enoch,  the  Assumption  of  Moses,  the 
Apocalypse  of  Baruch,  and  Fourth  Ezra.  These 
are  at  once  the  most  apocalyptic  and  the  richest 
in  allusions  to  the  Messiah.  They  are  all  founded 
on  the  Book  of  Daniel  and  similar  passages  in 
the  Old  Testament  prophets.  They  give  us  the 
apocalyptic  view  of  the  Messiah,  as  a  pre-existent, 
supernatural,    semi-divine    being,    sent   by    God 


30  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

from  heaven  to  be  the  Savior  of  Israel  from  its 
enemies  and  the  final  Judge  of  Men.  This  is 
quite  different  from  what  might  be  called  the 
popular  political  view,  the  idea  of  a  Davidic  king 
and  conqueror,  born  as  a  man  among  men.  The 
greatest  historical  question  about  Jesus  is  his 
relation  to  these  two  radically  different  concep- 
tions. 

Although  they  have  some  phrases  in  common, 
it  is  improbable  that  Jesus  or  the  earlier  apostles 
had  read  these  books.  Many  of  the  apocalyptic 
ideas  were  undoubtedly  more  or  less  common 
among  the  people,  and  from  their  speech  they 
get  into  both  the  Gospels  and  the  apocalyptic 
literature.  The  books  themselves  probably  sprang 
from  small  sects  rather  than  from  the  main  stock 
of  Pharisaic  Judaism. 

The  common  people  from  whom  Jesus  and  the 
apostles  came,  and  with  whom  they  had  most  to 
do,  were  not  Sadducees.  Neither  were  they 
Pharisees.  They  greatly  admired  the  Pharisees 
and  took  them  for  the  highest  types  of  piety. 
The  majority  did  the  best  they  could  and  plodded 
after  the  Pharisaic  leaders,  but  a  great  many 
were  too  busy  or  too  poor  to  devote  their  lives 


JESUS'  SITUATION  3I 

to  keeping  endless  regulations.  On  account  of 
their  failure  to  make  even  a  serious  attempt  at 
the  legalistic  ideal,  these  people  were  discouraged, 
and  many  became  "sinners,"  i.  e.,  men  who 
made  no  pretense  of  keeping  the  law.  To  these 
men  Jesus  offered  his  easier  yoke  and  his  blessed 
rest.    He  was  the  friend  of  the  "sinners." 

Among  the  Jews  of  Jesus'  day  were  many 
truly  pious  people  of  generally  Pharisaic  type,  but 
hardly  with  the  Pharisaic  emphasis  on  legalism. 
They  were  simple  in  their  thought,  nourished 
their  life  on  the  Old  Testament  scriptures  and 
lived  in  communion  with  God.  They  have  been 
called  "The  Devout."  They  were  really  Old 
Testament  Jews,  somewhat  influenced  by  con- 
temporary thought,  and  they  looked  hopefully 
and  prayerfully  for  the  consolation  of  Israel. 
They  formed  the  special  seed-plot  of  Christianity. 
It  was  in  such  devout  homes  that  the  Baptist, 
Jesus,  and  most  of  the  Twelve  grew  up. 

So  we  have  the  Sadducees  representing  worldli- 
ness;  the  Pharisees,  legalism;  the  Zealots,  na- 
tionalism and  revolution;  the  Messianic  hope  and 
the  apocal3rptic  dreams;  and  the  common  people, 
distressed  and  discouraged,  and  yet  in  expecta- 


32  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

tion  of  some  help  from  God.  Pharisaic  legalism, 
Zealot  revolutionary  nationalism,  and  the  Mes- 
sianic hope  constituted  the  problem  for  Jesus, 
and  our  principal  interest  is  in  seeing  how  he 
handled  these  elements  of  the  situation. 

And  now  John  the  Baptist  comes,  a  voice  cry- 
ing in  the  wilderness,  a  fresh  breath  of  the  ozone 
of  heaven's  hills  in  a  stagnant  world,  a  prophet 
in  word  and  deed.  He  proclaims  the  Messianic 
kingdom  at  hand,  declares  that  the  Messiah  will 
soon  appear  for  judgment,  and  bids  all  men 
repent.  The  people  were  profoundly  moved, 
''the  Messianic  hope  revived  with  a  start,  and 
the  whole  structure  of  Pharisaic  legalism  began 
to  crack  and  crumble."  For  John,  with  amazing 
insight  and  boldness,  demanded  more  than  ex- 
ternal piety,  more  than  a  stricter  legalism.  He 
insisted  on  a  real  change  of  mind  and  heart 
towards  God,  towards  sin,  towards  fellow  men, 
i.  e.,  towards  life  itself.  It  would  not  do  to  appeal 
to  racial  privilege  and  say,  "We  have  Abraham 
for  our  Father."  God  could  make  children  of 
Abraham  out  of  these  stones.  Nothing  but  genu- 
ine repentance  would  suflSce.  It  seemed  as  if 
Amos  or  Isaiah  had  risen  from  the  dead.    The 


JESUS'   SITUATION  33 

people  came  in  thousands  to  hear  and  to  receive 
the  baptism  of  repentance,  by  which  they  sym- 
bolized their  burial  of  the  old  life  and  their  resur- 
rection to  the  new.  But  the  Sadducees  in  their 
cynicism  and  the  Pharisees  in  their  self-righteous 
pride  stood  aloof  from  the  man,  who  regarded 
them  as  a  generation  of  vipers,  fit  only  for  the 
wrath  to  come.  Just  as  little  did  John  please 
the  Zealots,  who  waited  in  vain  for  a  call  to  arms 
amid  the  exhortations  to  repentance.  It  was  a 
great  revival  of  genuine  morality  and  pure  reli- 
gion. Jesus  could  not  stand  indifferent.  He  came 
and  was  baptized. 

(Note. — ^At  this  point  many  will  wish  to  turn  to  the  Appendix, 
which  furnishes  a  brief  and  comprehensive  survey  of  the  principal 
divisions  and  events  in  the  Life  of  Jesus.) 


CHAPTER  III 

HOW   DID   JESUS    COME    TO    BELIEVE    HIMSELF   THE 
MESSIAH? 

Although  a  matter  of  some  doubt,  the  better 
opinion  seems  to  be  that  the  Messianic  hope 
was  strong  among  the  Jews  during  the  boyhood 
of  Jesus.  At  least  we  know  that  with  the  preach- 
ing of  John  the  Baptist  it  became  the  center 
of  national  interest.  But  before  that  event,  when 
Jesus  was  ten  or  twelve  years  old,  and  a  re- 
markably bright  boy  for  his  age,  Judas  of  Galilee 
had  risen  in  rebellion  against  Rome  at  the  time 
of  the  taxing  under  Quirinius,  and,  according  to 
Josephus,  had  thereby  inaugurated  the  patriotic 
movement.  His  followers  developed  into  the  well 
known  Zealot  party  of  resolute  nationalists,  who 
thought  that  if  they  only  took  the  initiative 
against  the  Romans,  God  would  send  the  Messiah 
to  their  aid.  This  rebellion  threw  all  Galilee 
into  a  ferment  and  the  issues  must  have  been 
pondered  in  every  home.     The  Old  Testament 

34 


JESUS  AND  THE  MESSIAHSHIP  35 

pictures  of  the  Golden  Age,  the  theocratic  king 
and  the  Servant  of  Jehovah  were  seen  in  livelier 
colors,  and  the  family  at  Nazareth  could  not 
have  been  unmoved.  In  fact,  the  whole  country 
fell  to  discussing  the  matter.  Among  the  Phari- 
sees especially,  various  ideas  emerged,  for  we 
must  remember  that,  while  in  those  days  conduct 
was  exactly  prescribed,  faith  was  free  and  theol- 
ogy, outside  a  few  leading  ideas,  was  very  much 
in  the  fog.  While  then  in  Jesus'  boyhood  the 
Messianic  hope  was  vague  and  confused,  various 
parties  vacillating  between  different  ideas  of  just 
what  the  Messiah  would  do,  and  just  what  sort 
of  person  he  would  be,  it  is  still  probably  correct 
to  say,  as  we  have  said  before,  that  the  common 
denominator  of  all  these  opinions  may  be  ex- 
pressed thus:  The  Messiah  would  be  God's  special 
Representative  on  earth,  the  Bringer  of  Salvation, 
the  Founder  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  and  the 
final  Judge  of  Men.  Each  party,  of  course, 
would  wish  to  add,  define,  explain  and  modify, 
but  this  formula  could  express  every  view.  And 
this  Messiah  Jesus  thought  himself  to  be.  Of 
course,  he  too  had  his  ideas  of  the  meaning  of 
these  terms,  especially,  salvation  and  the  kingdom 


36  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

of  God,  but  that  is  another  story,  which  will 
be  told  in  subsequent  chapters. 

In  spite  of  all  that  can  be  said  against  it,  the 
fact  stands  fast  that  Jesus  thought  himself  the 
Messiah,  and  that  in  the  sense  above  expressed. 
The  gospel  passages  which  go  to  make  up  the 
proof  are  numerous,  but  we  will  mention  only  a 
few  of  the  more  important,  and  will  try  at  the 
same  time  to  find  out  how  early  in  life  the  idea 
entered  Jesus'  mind. 

We  know  that  he  believed  himself  to  be  the 
Messiah  at  the  final  Jewish  trial,  when  the  High 
Priest  asked  him  the  direct  question,  "Art  thou 
the  Messiah,  the  Son  of  the  Blessed?"  Think 
for  a  moment  of  the  solemnity  of  that  scene. 
Jesus  stood  at  last  before  the  supreme  court  of 
Israel;  the  High  Priest,  the  political  and  religious 
head  of  the  nation,  who  might  well  be  looked 
upon  as  the  mouthpiece  of  the  whole  people, 
asked  the  question.  In  asking  it,  he  put  Jesus 
under  oath  to  tell  the  truth,  the  whole  truth  and 
nothing  but  the  truth.  On  the  answer,  Jesus 
knew  full  well,  depended  his  life  or  death.  But 
he  did  not  equivocate,  he  did  not  explain,  he 
did  not  hesitate.    He  answered  simply  and  firmly. 


JESUS  AND  THE  MESSIAHSHIP  37 

"I  am,"  and  "what  is  more,"  he  added,  "one 
day  you,  who  judge  me  now,  will  appear  before 
my  Messianic  judgment  seat."  Any  possible 
remaining  doubt  that  Jesus  thought  himself  the 
Messiah  in  his  last  week  of  life  is  swept  away, 
when  we  remember  the  Messianic  Triumphal 
Entry  four  days  before  this  confession,  and  the 
fact  that  a  few  hours  after  it  the  Sanhedrists 
charged  Jesus  before  Pilate  with  claiming  to  be 
the  Messianic  King,  which,  of  course,  with  the 
Roman  Governor  was  nothing  less  than  high 
treason.  Pilate  in  accord  with  this  charge  placed 
above  Jesus'  head  upon  the  cross  the  words, 
"This  is  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  King  (the  Mes- 
sianic King)  of  the  Jews."  The  proof  is  complete. 
We  now  go  back  into  the  ministry,  possibly 
nearly  a  year,  to  Caesarea  Philippi.  Jesus  has 
been  journeying  with  his  disciples  through  non- 
Jewish  lands,  and  near  this  practically  heathen 
capital,  he  asks  them  the  momentous  question, 
"Whom  say  ye  that  I  am?"  When  Peter,  in  spite 
of  all  the  evidence  to  the  contrary  replies,  "Thou 
art  the  Messiah,"  Jesus  accepts  the  answer  with 
joy.  "Blessed  art  thou  Simon  Bar- Jonah,"  he 
says,  "for  flesh  and  blood  has  not  revealed  it  to 


38  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

thee,  but  my  Father,  who  is  in  heaven."  These 
words  ring  as  certainly  as  the  confession  before 
the  Sanhedrin. 

But  we  can  trace  this  thought  in  Jesus'  mind 
to  the  time  of  the  temptation,  in  the  very  be- 
ginning of  his  ministry.  It  is  a  fundamental 
error  to  see  in  Satan's  "If  thou  art  the  Son  of 
God"  any  suggestion  of  doubt,  as  though  the 
temptation  to  Jesus  were  to  doubt  his  Messiah- 
ship.  Ratherj  to  avoid  ambiguity,  we  might  well 
translate,  "Since  thou  art  the  Son  of  God,"  do  so 
and  so.^  Jesus'  Messiahship  is  taken  for  granted, 
it  is  made  the  very  basis  of  temptation.  The  mat- 
ter decided  in  that  hour  was  not  whether  Jesus 
was  the  Messiah  or  not,  but  what  sort  of  Messiah 
this  Galilean  peasant  would  choose  to  be,  what 
should  be  the  fundamental  principles  of  his  Mes- 
sianic activity. 

Can  we  go  yet  further  up  the  stream  of  Jesus' 
life  and  still  find  this  thought?  Doubtless.  The 
principal  thing  in  the  vision  at  the  baptism  is  the 
divine  message,  "Thou  art  my  beloved  Son,  in 

*  Just  as  it  might  be  said  to  an  American  President  with  refer- 
ence to  some  bill,  "If  you  are  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
send  in  your  veto,"  and  this  would  mean,  "Since  you  are  the 
President  of  the  United  States — and  you  are — send  in  your  veto." 


JESUS  AND  THE  MESSIAHSHIP  39 

whom  I  am  well  pleased."  The  first  words 
would  bring  to  any  Jewish  mind  the  second 
Psalm,  "Yet  I  have  set  my  king  upon  my  holy 
hill  of  Zion.  I  will  tell  the  decree:  Jehovah  said 
unto  me,  Thou  art  my  son;  this  day  have  I  be- 
gotten thee."  This  is  the  theocratic  king;  and 
the  Servant  of  Jehovah  of  Isaiah  42:  i  would 
probably  be  suggested  by  the  second  phrase,  "in 
whom  I  am  well  pleased."  To  Jesus,  this  word 
then  could  mean  nothing  less  and  nothing  else 
than,  "Thou  art  the  Messiah,"  the  Messianic 
king,  "my  Servant  sent  to  bring  Jacob  again  to 
me,  and  to  be  my  salvation  unto  the  ends  of  the 
earth."    (Isaiah  49:  5,  6) 

But  did  he  think  himself  the  Messiah  before 
his  baptism?  We  enter  here  upon  more  debatable 
ground,  but  ^e  must,  I  think,  say,  "yes."  Two 
considerations  lead  us  to  this  conclusion.  In 
Matthew's  account,  John  the  Baptist  is  repre- 
sented as  saying  to  Jesus  as  he  presents  himself 
to  be  baptized,  "I  have  need  to  be  baptized  of 
thee  and  comes t  thou  to  me?"  John  senses  in 
Jesus  his  moral  and  spiritual  superior,  just  as  we 
are  often  aware  of  standing  in  the  presence  of 
men  stronger,  abler,  purer  than  we  are.     With 


40  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

Jesus  before  him,  John's  own  moral  need  pain- 
fully obtrudes  itself  on  his  conscience.  He  feels 
that  he  would  like,  himself,  to  be  baptized  by 
this  one  mightier  and  better  than  he.  But  what 
does  Jesus  say?  Does  he  tell  John  that  he  has 
made  a  mistake,  that  he  does  not  stand  in  the 
presence  of  a  superior  after  all?  Nothing  of  the 
kind.  He  rather  says,  "John,  you  are  correct. 
It  would  be  more  iStting  for  me  to  baptize  you, 
but,  in  the  circumstances,  there  are  reasons  which 
make  the  other  course  right."  These  words 
prove  that  Jesus,  even  before  the  baptism,  felt 
himself  the  superior  of  John,  whom  he  afterwards 
called  "more  than  a  prophet''  and,  indeed,  "the 
greatest  bom  of  women."  Could  such  a  superior 
be  any  other  than  the  Messiah?  A  second  con- 
sideration makes  this  answer  certain.  It  is  un- 
psychological  to  suppose  that  the  vision  at  the 
baptism  gave  Jesus  an  entirely  new  idea.  Things 
do  not  happen  that  way  in  life.  God  prepares 
men  for  his  revelations,  and  must  necessarily 
have  done  so  in  this  case,  where  the  revelation 
was  the  most  astounding  ever  made  to  any  of  the 
sons  of  men.  Had  it  come  as  unexpectedly  as  a 
bolt  from  the  blue,  it  would  probably  first  have 


JESUS  AND  THE  MESSIAHSHIP  4I 

stunned  and  dazed  Jesus,  and  then  have  unbal- 
anced his  mind.  When  we  come  to  think  it  over 
carefully,  we  must  believe  that  Jesus  had  long 
had  the  idea  and  that  the  voice  from  heaven 
gave  him  only  his  final  certainly.  And  this  is 
confirmed  by  those  words  reported  as  from  his 
lips  at  twelve  years  of  age,  "I  must  be  about  my 
Father's  business,"  *  words  which  certainly  do  not 
imply  Messiahship,  but  do  suggest  that  even  at 
that  age  Jesus  felt  that  he  was  divinely  called 
to  devote  his  life  to  some  distinctly  religious 
task. 

Some  indeed  would  go  further  than  this  and 
say  that  he  knew  himself  as  Messiah  even  from 
the  cradle.  But  in  this  they  go  not  merely  be- 
yond scripture,  but  beyond  all  that  we  can 
understand.  My  Sunday  School  teacher,  for 
instance,  used  to  teach  us  that,  as  man,  Jesus 
knew  no  more  than  an  ordinary  infant,  but  that, 
as  God,  he  knew  all  things.  This,  however,  was 
not  Luke's  view.  He  writes,  "The  child  grew 
and  waxed  strong,  becoming  filled  (margin)  with 
wisdom,  and  the  grace  of  God  was  upon  him  " 
(Luke  2:  40);  and  again,  "And  Jesus  advanced 
^  I  prefer  this  translation  of  the  Authorized  Version. 


42  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

in  wisdom  and  in  stature,  and  in  favor  with  God 
and  men'^  (Luke  2:  52);  and  the  author  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  thought  that  "though 
he  was  a  Son,  yet  he  learned  obedience  by  the 
things  which  he  suffered"  (5:  8).  Moreover  such 
a  double  person,  who  thought  and  acted  now  as 
God  and  now  as  man,  is  very  far  removed  from 
us,  could  not  have  been  truly  a  man,  nor  have 
lived  a  truly  human  life.  We  cannot  think  of  him 
as  a  real  brother,  involved  in  our  difficulties, 
fighting  the  same  sort  of  battle  which  we  must 
fight,  or  really  conquering  in  the  moral  conflict. 
This  Jesus,  now  God  and  now  man,  is  thus  alien 
to  us  and  we  instinctively  feel  that  he  cannot 
truly  sympathize  with  us  in  our  temptations, 
struggles  and  sorrows. 

My  Sunday  School  teacher  was  only  repeating 
a  dictiun  of  fourth  century  theologians,  which 
cannot  be  made  binding  on  free  Protestant  Chris- 
tians, and  which  is  entirely  out  of  tune  with 
modem  feeling  and  conceptions.  As  a  sincere 
attempt  to  explain  the  mystery  of  the  personality 
of  Jesus  and  guarantee  his  unique  greatness  and 
divinity,  it  is  worthy  of  our  respect,  but  we  can- 
not help  feeling  that  it  is  mechanical,  unnatural, 


JESUS  AND  THE  MESSIAHSHIP  43 

impossible  and  without  warrant  either  in  Scrip- 
ture or  in  experience.  Our  age  demands  a  more 
vital  theory,  more  in  line  with  what  we  know  of 
mental  and  moral  growth,  more  congruous  with 
the  portrait  of  Jesus  in  the  gospels.  While  per- 
haps we  cannot  define  our  idea  with  the  sharpness 
vouchsafed  those  ancient  theologians,  we  may 
say  that  we  must  think  of  Jesus  as  developing 
like  any  other  child.  Like  all  great  personalities, 
he  gradually  became  conscious  of  himself,  of  his 
capacities,  of  the  work  God  had  given  him  to 
do,  and  of  the  career  and  the  destiny  before  him. 
But  more  than  any  other,  he  was  led  of  the 
Spirit  in  it  all. 

But  can  we  discover  the  source  and  trace  the 
development  of  Jesus'  idea  that  he  was  the  Mes- 
siah during  the  years  which  preceded  his  baptism? 
I  think  we  can.  To  be  sure,  the  only  passage 
to  which  we  can  appeal  is  the  one  already  quoted, 
Luke  2:  49,  "I  must  be  about  my  Father's  busi- 
ness." But  this  is  too  meagre  a  foundation  on 
which  to  build,  too  uncertain  in  various  ways  to 
bear  the  superstructure  we  intend  to  erect.  We 
are  thrown  back  on  wider  considerations. 

We  choose  to  base  the  whole  of  our  present 


44  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

investigation  and  indeed  the  whole  of  this  book 
on  the  moral  perfection  of  Jesus.  We  do  not 
prove  this  by  reviewing  all  the  words  and  deeds 
of  Jesus  recorded  in  the  gospels,  and  coming  to 
the  conclusion  that  Jesus  knew  no  sin.  Such  a 
method  is  illusory.  These  reports  may  not  be 
unbiased  and  are  certainly  fragmentary,  and  the 
conclusion  is  therefore  not  indisputable.  There 
is  a  broader  and,  it  seems  to  me,  an  incontestable 
proof.  It  is  this.  The  higher  a  man's  moral  and 
spiritual  standard,  the  surer  he  is  to  see  and  con- 
fess his  sinfulness  and  shortcomings.  The  great- 
est saints,  like  Paul,  Jonathan  Edwards  and 
John  Wesley,  have  ever  felt  their  sin  most  acutely. 
Now  all  will  acknowledge  that  Jesus  was  a  man 
of  exquisite  moral  feehng  and  deepest  spiritual 
insight.  He  was  and  is  the  great  searcher  of 
human  hearts.  Yet  he  never  seems  to  have  been 
conscious  of  any  sin  or  fault  or  shortcoming  in 
himself.  He  never  prayed  for  forgiveness,  nor 
expressed  the  sHghtest  regret  for  anything  he  ever 
did.  Again,  Jesus  was  the  greatest  teacher  in 
the  sphere  of  morals  and  religion.  No  one  ever 
set  the  ethical  standard  so  high,  or  preached  more 
solemnly  the  seriousness  of  the  moral  struggle. 


JESUS  AND  THE  MESSIAH  SHIP  45 

Yet  he  never  by  a   single  word  expressed   the 
slightest  aspiration  to  be  better  than  he  wasTA 

If  it  is  objected  that  this  proof  also  is  insuffi- 
cient, that,  in  this  case  too,  omissions  and  im- 
perfections in  the  records  may  render  it  all  illu- 
sory, we  answer  with  perfect  confidence.  This 
method  of  representing  the  goodness  of  Jesus  as 
a  goodness,  unlike  that  of  all  other  good  men, 
without  repentance  and  without  aspiration,  de- 
mands an  originality  and  insight  deeper  than  we 
can  ascribe  to  the  simple  Christians  who  wrote 
these  memorials.  Moreover,  according  to  this 
theory,  they  have  succeeded  in  building  upon 
this  unique  principle  a  character  moving  in  a 
real  world  of  men  with  its  vicissitudes,  perplexi- 
ties and  tragedies,  uttering  thousands  of  words 
on  most  diverse  topics  and  in  varied  situations, 
and  yet  they  have  made  him  so  natural,  so  real, 
so  simple,  so  good  and  nevertheless  so  great,  that 
he  has  influenced  the  world  as  none  other.  This 
feat,  says  Rousseau,  no  friend  of  Christianity, 
would  be  a  greater  miracle  than  the  character 
itself.  So  also  says  John  Stuart  Mill.  We  agree 
with  them.  Jesus  was  the  perfect  man.  No 
one  has  ever  yet  been  able  to  conceive  a  char- 


46  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

acter  greater,  wiser,  or  better  than  he,  nor  has 
anyone  like  him  yet  appeared  in  history.  The 
greatest  test  of  Jesus'  character  was  this  very 
idea  of  Messiahship;  as  Oscar  Holtzmann  says, 
"the  greatest  thought  that  ever  entered  a  human 
mind  and  left  it  sane."  But  in  spite  of  this 
marvelous  assumption,  he  never  strikes  the  reader 
of  the  gospels  as  an  egotist,  but  is  perfectly  bal- 
anced, calm  and  straightforward,  nay  more,  al- 
ways giving  the  impression  of  gentleness,  humil- 
ity, love  and  unselfishness.  "This  impression  of 
perfection  which  the  Master  made  is  entirely 
unique  in  the  spiritual  history  of  man.  No  one 
ever  made  it  before,  and  no  one  ever  tried  to 
claim  it." 

Founding  everything  then  upon  the  moral 
perfection  of  Jesus,  we  again  ask.  Can  we  dis- 
cover the  source  and  trace  the  development  of 
his  idea  that  he  was  the  Messiah,  during  the 
years  that  preceded  his  baptism?  We  find  that 
this  question  practically  resolves  itself  into  an- 
other. How  would  a  morally  perfect  boy,  the 
boy  who  became  the  man  Jesus,  develop?  In 
other  words,  we  must  trace  the  character  of  Jesus 
to  its  source,  and  in  so  doing  may  legitimately 


JESUS  AND  THE  MESSIAHSHIP  47 

use  all  we  know  of  Jesus,  of  his  career,  and  of 
his  thought,  for  the  man  is  only  the  larger  and 
maturer  boy.  The  following  paragraphs  present 
therefore  no  merely  imaginative  picture  based  on 
a  fanciful  theory,  but  a  sketch  which  is  true  to 
the  best  data  we  have. 

First  of  all,  brought  up  in  a  Jewish  home,  the 
thought  of  God  was  perfectly  natural  to  Jesus,  He 
drew  it  in  with  his  mother's  milk.  He  grew  up 
with  it.  It  was  the  very  center  of  his  thought. 
He  was  absolutely  sure  of  God.  Never  a  doubt 
about  him  ever  flitted  across  his  mind. 

All  the  world  seemed  full  of  God  to  him. 
Heaven  was  God's  throne,  the  earth  was  his  foot- 
stool. God  sent  the  sunshine  and  the  rain,  God 
fed  the  birds  and  would  feed  his  children  too, 
God  made  the  grass  grow  and  painted  the  Hly. 
How  much  more  would  he  clothe  those  who 
trusted  him  ever  so  imperfectly?  God  led  men  by 
his  own  hand.  If  perchance,  to  strengthen  and 
broaden  them,  he  brought  them  into  temptation, 
he  delivered  them  from  the  evil.  Jesus  was  sure 
that  God  was  always  near  and  that  he  could 
depend  upon  him.  His  trust  was  as  simple  and 
as  strong  as  that  of  a  child  in  its  mother. 


48  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

God  never  seemed  vague,  unreal  or  strange 
to  him.  No  slightest  shade  of  alienation  ever 
clouded  God's  face.  No  feeling  of  guilt  ever 
made  him  afraid  of  God  or  gave  him  any  desire 
to  hide  from  him.  He  called  God  his  Father, 
not  because  he  mysteriously  knew  of  some  unique 
connection  with  him  before  the  world  was,  but 
because  he  felt  so  much  at  home  with  God.  I 
know  that  I  am  the  son  of  a  noble  father,  whom 
God  yet  graciously  spares  to  me,  not  so  much 
because  of  the  facts  recorded  in  the  family  Bible, 
as  because  I  find  myself  so  much  one  with  him. 
I  understand  his  peculiar  physical  movements. 
I  know  why  he  does  just  this  or  that,  and  ex- 
actly how  he  feels  when  he  does  these  things.  I 
divine  his  thought  before  he  speaks.  I  antici- 
pate his  wishes.  There  is  a  deep  understanding 
and  interplay  of  feeling  and  life  between  us.  His 
characteristic  mental  action  is  perfectly  familiar 
to  me.  If  someone  asks  him  a  question,  I  often 
can  predict  his  reply  before  he  utters  it.  Jesus 
knew  his  Father,  God,  even  more  intimately, 
found  himself  in  wonderful  harmony  and  unison 
with  him.  God's  thought  seemed  to  him  the 
most   natural    thing   in    the   world.     He   found 


JESUS  AND  THE  MESSIAHSHIP  49 

that  he  felt  as  God  felt  towards  righteousness  and 
evil,  toward  men  and  life.  He  discovered  that 
his  own  deepest  purpose  was  a  reproduction  of 
his  Father^s.  So  he  felt  that  God  was  his  Father. 
It  was  deeper  than  reason,  alien  to  the  realm  of 
logic.  It  was  instinct.  His  moral  and  spiritual 
likeness  to  God  made  him  sure  that  he  was 
God's  own  child. 

So  he  lived  in  daily  communion  with  his 
Father,  and  this  communion  was  the  sunshine  of 
his  soul,  the  very  life  of  his  inmost  spirit.  It 
was  an  unbroken  and  delightful  union  of  love, 
an  unspeakable  joy  welling  up  from  the  very 
depths  of  his  nature. 

He  read  the  Old  Testament  like  every  other 
Jewish  child,  but  he  dwelt  most  of  all  on  Deu- 
teronomy, the  Psalms  and  the  prophets.  These 
were  his  favorite  books.  In  loving  study  of  these 
scriptures,  he  often  meditated  on  Isaiah's  glow- 
ing prophecies  of  the  glory,  purity  and  blessing 
of  Messianic  times,  but  he  felt  that  nothing  there 
described  went  beyond  what  he  experienced  every 
day.  God's  presence,  the  light  of  his  counte- 
nance, the  satisfaction  of  soul,  the  deep  peace, 
the  holy  joy,  the  sense  of  perfect  security,  the 


50  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

beauty  of  righteousness,  so  sublimely  described, 
all  were  his.  He  could  imagine  no  future  in 
which  he  or  other  men  could  enjoy  more  thai:i  he 
already  possessed.  There  was  only  one  conclu- 
sion, these  prophecies  had  been  fulfilled  in  him, 
heaven  was  in  his  heart,  the  kingdom  of  God 
was  within  him.  In  Nazareth,  he  daily  sat  down 
to  all  of  the  good  things  of  the  Messianic  feast 
and  rejoiced  as  he  looked  into  his  Father's  face. 
Others  might  think  the  Messianic  time  to  be 
still  future,  but  in  his  own  soul,  he  knew  that 
it  was  now. 

All  this  had  a  charming  naturalness  about  it. 
As  Jesus  developed,  his  secret  conviction  grew 
in  strength  and  definiteness.  His  was  a  happy, 
healthy  boyhood.  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  sup- 
pose that  sin  is  an  essential  part  of  human  nature. 
It  is  not  only  not  necessary  to  it,  but  is  an  ugly 
twist  given  to  what  would  otherwise  be  good  and 
beautiful.  It  is  a  greater  mistake  to  look  upon 
religion  in  a  child  as  something  unnatural  and 
morbid.  This  sinless  boy  who  grew  up  with 
the  thought  of  God  as  his  Father,  whose  moral 
perfection  deepened  and  widened  with  his  ex- 
perience of  life,  was  the  only  perfectly  normal 


JESUS  AND  THE  MESSIAHSHIP  5 1 

boy  of  whom  history  tells  us,  and  if  we  but  knew 
more  of  the  years  of  his  childhood  and  youth, 
would  be  the  ideal  for  boys  of  all  lands  and  all 
ages. 

With  this  treasure  in  his  heart,  Jesus  looked 
out  of  happy  eyes,  upon  the  world  of  men  about 
him.  He  observed  the  motives  and  conduct  of 
his  brothers  and  sisters,  of  the  men  and  women 
of  Nazareth,  and  perhaps  from  the  hill  beyond 
the  city  gazed  on  the  Roman  legions  as  they 
marched,  and  the  traffic  which  streamed  to  and 
fro  along  the  road  between  Ptolemais  on  the 
one  hand  and  Capernaum  and  Damascus  on  the 
other.  All  lived  the  ordinary  life  of  men  before 
him.  They  had  no  idea  that  this  quiet,  good 
boy  was  to  make  the  name  of  his  obscure  town 
known  on  all  the  continents  and  through  all  the 
centuries.  So  they  ate,  they  drank,  they  bought, 
they  sold,  they  planted,  they  builded,  they  mar- 
ried and  were  given  in  marriage.  But  Jesus* 
sensitive  soul  soon  discovered,  possibly  at  first 
with  some  surprise,  that  these  people  had  no 
such  blessed  experience  of  the  Father's  presence 
and  love  as  he  possessed. 

God  seemed  far  off  from  them  and  they  from 


52  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

God,  they  did  not  live  in  his  presence,  nor  feel 
him  in  their  hearts.  It  was  theirs  to  keep  his 
law,  to  be  sure,  but  he  himself,  most  of  them 
conceived,  lived  far  away  in  heaven,  only  re- 
motely interested  in  their  daily  cares.  Some, 
who  had  been  caught  in  the  snare  of  Gentile 
thought,  even  doubted  whether  there  were  a  God. 

They  looked  out  upon  the  world,  but  they  did 
not  see  God  in  it  all.  The  sun  rose  in  the  splen- 
dor of  crimson  and  gold  over  the  eastern  hills, 
flooding  the  world  with  light,  and  set  in  the 
western  sea,  painting  the  sky  with  glory,  but 
most  of  them  never  noticed  it,  and  few  saw  the 
God  of  beauty  and  of  love  in  it.  They  painfully 
or  carelessly  toiled  along  the  common  road  from 
the  cradle  to  the  grave,  but  few  saw  the  Father's 
hand  leading  them  through  the  sunshine  and  the 
shadow. 

Many  were  estranged  from  God  by  a  sense  of 
sin  and  guilt.  He  grew  very  dim  and  misty  to 
their  thought  and  they  felt  a  wall  of  separation 
between  him  and  them.  When  conscience  awoke, 
they  feared  him  as  a  criminal  fears  the  judge. 
Some  of  them  indeed  did  not  like  to  think  of 
him,   for  the  thought  brought  them  no  joy  or 


JESUS  AND  THE  MESSIAHSHIP  53 

peace.  Possibly  Jesus  may  have  spoken  to  many 
of  them  of  the  blessedness  of  his  experience,  but 
found  their  ears  deaf  and  their  heart  gross. 

Jesus  saw  that  all  their  life  and  happiness 
was  spoiled  by  sin  and  selfishness  and  inner 
falsity,  by  envy,  jealousy,  covetousness,  lust, 
contempt,  pride  and  hatred,  by  anxiety,  distrust 
and  fear,  by  aimlessness,  loneliness,  weariness 
and  despair,  by  the  burden  of  guilt  and  the 
consciousness  of  moral  failure;  and  with  poverty, 
disaster,  disease  and  death  ever  standing  just 
behind  the  door,  their  lot  was  sad  indeed. 

Then  his  Savior-heart  was  stirred.  He  was 
filled  with  compassion  for  them,  for  they  were 
scattered  and  distressed  as  sheep  that  had  no 
shepherd.  His  limitless  love  went  out  to  them. 
He  knew  that  all  their  sin  and  misery  would 
vanish,  if  they  could  only  live  like  him  in  the 
sunshine  of  the  Father^s  face,  and  he  longed  to 
bring  them  into  the  blessing  which  irradiated  his 
life  with  purity  and  peace  and  joy.^ 

1  He  felt  that  he  had  what  they  had  not.  "He  never  put  him- 
self on  the  same  level  of  sonship  with  men.  He  felt  himself  above 
men  here.  They  needed  repentance,  he  none.  He  could  not  have 
called  himself  Messiah,  if  he  had  not  felt  the  difference  first." 

Von  Soden. 


54  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

And  this  was  his  call,  a  call  from  above.  Here 
was  his  work,  a  work  which  lay  immediately  at 
his  hand.  It  was  perfectly  simple,  perfectly 
plain.  All  he  had  to  do  was  to  bring  men  into 
the  same  communion  with  God  which  he  pos- 
sessed. His  whole  business  was  to  give,  to  give 
his  inner  self  to  those  about  him.  And  he  felt 
in  himself  the  strength  to  do  it.  He  understood 
now  that  he  had  been  bom  for  no  other  purpose, 
that  God  had  given  him  all  needed  resources  to 
accomplish  this  blessed  mission.  He  trusted  in 
God  to  lead  him,  to  show  him  the  way,  to  give 
him  the  opportunities.  The  voice  at  the  baptism 
only  brought  him  to  a  final  certainty.  With 
every  step  the  conviction  deepened  that  his 
Father  had  sent  him  to  do  this  very  thing.  And 
when  the  road  grew  rough  and  steep,  and  the 
shadow  of  a  cross  loomed  in  the  distance,  his 
love  never  drew  back,  but  he  went  right  on 
through  suspicion,  calumny,  danger,  treachery, 
insult,  pain  and  death  itself  to  do  his  work  of 
love. 

Most  appropriately  Luke  represents  him  as 
preaching  his  first  sermon  from  the  text,  long 
since  spoken  of  the  Servant  of  Jehovah, 


JESUS  AND  THE  MESSIAHSHIP  55 

"The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me, 
Because  he  anointed  me  to  preach  good  tidings 
to  the  poor: 

He  hath  sent  me  to  proclaim  release  to  the 
captives, 
And  recovering  of  sight  to  the  blind, 
To  set  at  liberty  them  that  are  bruised, 
To  proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord." 
And  the  middle  of  the  ministry  repeats  the  mes- 
sage: 

"Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are 
heavy  laden  and  I  will  give  you  rest.  Take  my 
yoke  upon  you  and  learn  of  me,  for  I  am  meek 
and  lowly  in  heart,  and  ye  shall  find  rest  to  your 
souls.  For  my  yoke  is  easy  and  my  burden  is 
light."  He  bids  men  come  to  him  and  learn 
what  his  heart  can  teach  them.  That  heart's  ex- 
perience is  salvation  and  rest. 

Having  this  work  to  do,  having  received  this 
divine  call,  having  been  endued  with  all  the 
power  of  the  Spirit,  he  most  naturally  thought  of 
himself  as  Messiah.  There  was  no  other  word 
in  his  world  to  express  him.  So  we  see  that  his 
Messiahship  was  no  arbitrary  title,  ambitiously 
grasped  at  in  self-will  by  one  who  could  scarcely 


56  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

stagger  under  its  load.  We  see  too  how  unsatis- 
factory and  superficial  is  the  view  that  it  was 
something  unexpectedly  imposed  upon  him  from 
without  at  his  baptism.  Rather  his  inner  ex- 
perience of  communion  with  God,  his  sonship, 
was  the  source  of  his  Messiahship.  What  he  was 
was  the  root  of  what  he  became.  He  came  to 
think  that  he  was  the  Messiah,  because  he  found 
that  he  had  a  Messiah's  work  to  do,  and  that  he 
had  within  himself  the  resources  to  do  it.  The 
strong  man  leaped  up  with  joy  to  perform  the 
mighty  task,  confident  in  his  own  powers,  and 
relying  implicitly  on  God. 

All  was  natural.  It  was  the  unfolding  of  the 
greatest  of  personalities.  He  went  forth  to  share 
with  men  his  joy,  his  freedom,  his  light,  his 
energy;  to  give  men  his  life — a  life  with  God,  a 
life  of  love  and  righteousness.  This  is  the  inmost 
secret  of  his  mission.  To  this  delightful  spiritual 
experience  of  his  boyhood  and  youth  we  trace 
everything  back  as  to  its  spring.  Nay  more, 
the  source  of  the  church,  of  Christianity  and  of 
Christian  civilization  is  found  at  last  to  be  the 
heart  of  Jesus. 

And  as  a  matter  of  fact,  history  has  proved 


JESUS  AND   THE  MESSIAHSHIP  57 

that  he  was  the  Messiah  in  the  sense  in  which 
he  used  that  term.  He  was  and  is  God's  special 
Representative  upon  earth.  Men  can  name  no 
greater.  No  one  else  has  ever  so  impressed  upon 
the  world  the  sense  of  the  presence  of  God.  He 
seems  the  embodiment  of  the  divine  purity  and 
the  divine  love.  He  brings  in  himself  God's 
message  of  peace  and  hope  to  men.  In  him  we 
see  the  Father,  learn  to  know  his  will,  and  feel  the 
beating  of  his  heart.  Jesus  translates  all  our 
religious  abstractions  into  concrete  realities,  all 
our  theologies  into  life,  all  our  vague  spiritual 
dreams  and  hopes  into  action  and  endeavor. 

He  was  and  is  the  B ringer  of  Salvation.  All 
who  have  come  to  him,  who  have  accepted  the 
simple  though  radical  conditions  which  he  lays 
down,  and  who  have  surrendered  their  lives  to 
his  guidance  have  been  saved.  And  by  this  I 
mean  that,  either  gradually  or  suddenly,  accord- 
ing to  temperament  and  the  circumstances  of 
the  case,  they  have  experienced  such  a  sense  of 
freedom  from  old  burdens  and  limitations,  such 
a  new  feeling  of  purity  and  peace,  such  an  access 
of  moral  and  spiritual  power,  such  a  realization 
of  love  for  all  men  and  especially  for  God,  such 


58  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

a  new  and  worthy  purpose  in  life,  such  a  unity 
of  heart  and  mind  and  will,  such  freshness,  joy 
and  hope  as  all  together  can  be  counted  nothing 
less  than  a  new  life.  And  they  come  to  recognize 
that  this  is,  after  all,  only  sharing  the  wonderful 
energy  and  purity  of  the  inner  life  of  Jesus.  And 
just  in  proportion  as  nations  and  ages  and  society  in 
general  have  entered  into  the  blessings  which  Jesus 
offers  in  himself,  have  they  felt  the  new  stir,  the  new 
impulse  and  the  new  hope,  and  entered  upon 
higher  moral  and  spiritual  stages  of  development. 
He  was  and  is  the  Founder  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  on  earth.  That  kingdom  is  being  set  up 
today  on  every  continent  and  among  the  people 
of  every  race  and  language  on  the  whole  globe. 
His  name  is  praised  from  the  rising  of  the  sun 
to  the  going  down  thereof.  All  spheres  of  life 
and  activity  are  being  subdued  to  his  will.  The 
multitude  which  hails  him  the  Lord  of  their 
lives  continually  increases,  and  with  fervent  faith 
believes  the  day  will  come  when  he  shall  reign  as 
the  spiritual  leader  and  undisputed  moral  king  of 
men.  No  one  can  reasonably  doubt  that  the 
present  movement  descends  through  the  centuries 
from  the  Jesus  of  Galilee  and  Jerusalem. 


JESUS  AND   THE  MESSIAHSHIP  59 

He  is  and  will  be  the  Judge  of  Men.  If  he 
is,  as  we  have  tried  to  prove,  the  one  morally 
and  spiritually  perfect  man,  the  new  type  of  a 
higher  race,  excelling  all  others  in  beauty  and 
strength  and  the  glory  of  a  divine  holiness  and 
love,  then  surely  every  character  must  finally  be 
tested  by  the  attitude  assumed  toward  him,  and 
he  becomes  the  touchstone  of  destiny. 

So  then  he  is  Messiah,  not  only  because  we 
can  show  from  many  Scripture  passages  that  he 
so  thought  himself,  but  because  he  had  the  ex- 
perience of  God  and  the  spiritual  power  to  do  a 
Messiah's  work,  and  lastly  because,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  he  was  and  is  God's  special  Representa- 
tive on  earth,  the  Bringer  of  Salvation,  the 
Founder  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  and  the 
Judge  of  Men.  History  has  proved  him  to  be 
Messiah,  in  the  sense  in  which  he  used  the  word. 


CHAPTER  IV 

HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM 

Part  I 

Two  great  elements  in  the  life  of  Palestine 
determined  the  outer  form  of  the  career  of  Jesus, 
and  their  complications  constituted  that  tangled 
web  of  circumstance  through  which  he  had  to 
cut  his  way.  The  first  was  Pharisaic  legalism, 
the  less  important  of  the  two,  whose  considera- 
tion we  consequently  postpone  to  another  chap- 
ter. The  other  and  more  important,  to  one  who 
believed  himself  the  Messiah,  was  the  Messianic 
Hope  of  Israel. 

At  the  risk  of  repetition,  we  again  sketch  the 
situation.  The  common  people,  at  least  after 
John  the  Baptist  began  to  preach,  eagerly  ex- 
pected a  Messiah,  who  would  be  a  son  of  David, 
born  as  a  man  of  men,  an  earthly  king,  who 
would  break  the  power  of  the  Romans,  deliver 
the  Jews  from  their  oppression,  hold  a  judgment 
day,   found  a  world  empire  with  Jerusalem  as 

60 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  6 1 

the  capital  and  the  Jews  as  the  ruling  people,  and 
thenceforth  reign  in  peace  and  righteousness. 
This  Messiah  would  be  endowed  with  super- 
natural powers,  and  would  have  all  the  resources 
of  God  for  his  great  and  holy  enterprise.  The 
ethical  element  was  of  the  essence  of  this  hope, 
more  or  less  strong  in  the  minds  of  various 
groups. 

The  Zealots  were  the  men  who  took  this  ex- 
pectation of  a  political  Messiah  in  earnest,  and 
felt  that  if  they  only  initiated  the  rebellion 
against  Rome,  God  would  send  the  Messiah  to 
their  aid.  They  were  the  party  of  action  and 
aggression.  It  is  important  for  us  to  remember 
that  Galilee  was  the  birthplace  and  the  hotbed 
of  Zealotism.  It  is  the  free-born,  imspoiled 
Galileans,  who  rise  in  rebellion  again  and  again, 
against  whom  Vespasian  with  sixty  thousand 
men  must  wage  a  relentless  campaign  of  a  year's 
duration,  before  he  can  besiege  the  capital.  It 
is  these  Galilean  Zealots,  who  imdertake  the 
defense  of  Jerusalem,  who  die  in  the  last  ditch 
at  Masada,  and  who  grace  Titus'  triumph  in  Rome. 
The  Jerusalem  and  Judea  of  Jesus'  time,  rich, 
ecclesiastical,  formal,  did  not  favor  such  violent 


62  THE  MAN   OF   NAZARETH 

and  fanatical  ideas.  They  felt  on  the  whole 
that  it  was  best  to  wait  God's  good  time,  which 
they  thought  would  come  only  on  condition  of  a 
perfect  keeping  of  the  law,  and  therefore  was  in- 
definitely distant.  Then  in  some  inexplicable 
way  God  would  send  his  Messiah,  a  being  more 
or  less  vaguely  supernatural,  who  would  carry 
out  the  same  political  program  which  the  com- 
mon people  expected. 

A  few  among  the  Pharisees  carried  the  hope 
of  a  supernatural  Messiah  to  its  extreme.  They 
looked  for  a  preexistent  Son  of  Man,  who  would 
come  from  heaven  to  judge  the  world  and  in- 
augurate a  new  age  of  supernatural  glory.  This 
was  the  apocalyptic  view,  as  opposed  to  the  political 
view  held  with  variations  by  the  common  people, 
the  Zealots  and  the  more  conservative  Pharisees. 
With  these  two  views,  apocalyptic  and  political, 
Jesus  had  to  reckon. 

This  chapter  will  show  how  Jesus  handled 
these  ideas  and  sentiments,  and  will  especially 
attempt  to  trace  the  movement  of  his  own  mind 
and  to  analyze  the  great  crises  of  his  Messianic 
career.  It  will  therefore  be  a  skeleton  sketch  of 
his  ministry  from  his  own  point  of  view,  dealing 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  63 

with    the   more   important   questions    connected 
with  his  life. 

Jesus  entered  this  world  of  conflicting  Mes- 
sianic views  with  a  different  and  perfectly  definite 
Messianic  conception  of  his  own,  utterly  independ- 
ent of  the  popular  ideas  in  its  origin,  for  it  had 
its  source  in  his  own  experience  of  God  and  of 
spiritual  blessedness.  The  clue  that  will  lead  us 
through  the  tangled  maze  before  us  is  simply 
this,  that  Jesus  held  firmly  to  his  own  conception 
of  his  mission  to  the  end.  To  be  sure,  he  must 
relate  it  to  the  popular  ideas,  must  express  it  in 
the  popular  language,  and  must  perhaps  modify 
it  and  add  to  it  as  vicissitudes  arose.  But  he 
never  changed  it  in  any  essential  particular. 
Whatever  he  appropriated  from  the  popular  be- 
liefs only  served  to  express  his  own  view  to  the 
people,  or  helped  him  to  hold  it  strongly  in  the 
swirling  eddies  of  the  conflict.  And  this  is  the 
touch  of  reality.  The  gospels  show  us  the  ideal- 
istic man  of  Nazareth  with  his  matchless  inner 
experience  leaving  his  quiet  Ufe,  and,  the  moment 
he  steps  upon  the  public  stage,  caught  in  the 
cross  currents  of  interests,  opinions  and  preju- 
dices, and  soon  in  desperate  struggle  with  narrow 


64  IHE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

bigotry,  sordid  covetousness,  patriotic  ambitions 
and  treacherous  superficiality.  Here  is  the  ideal 
man  in  the  real  world. 

The  origin  and  content  of  Jesus'  own  view  of 
his  mission  and  Messiahship  were  sketched  in 
the  last  chapter.  Suffice  it  to  say  here  that,  im- 
mediately after  his  baptism,  Jesus  was  sure  of 
two  things;  that  he  enjoyed  a  unique  relationship 
and  communion  with  God,  and  that  he  was  called 
of  God  to  bring  this  spiritual  blessing  to  men, 
especially  to  the  Jewish  nation.  This  was  salva- 
tion, and  he  was,  therefore,  Savior.  To  this 
end,  he  felt  himself  endued  with  all  the  necessary 
spiritual  power.  These  are  the  fundamental 
facts  about  Jesus,  at  this  time,  and  it  is  neces- 
sary for  us  to  conceive  them  clearly  in  all  their 
simplicity.  Our  whole  aim  must  be  to  see  Jesus 
with  new  eyes,  to  put  aside  for  the  time  at  least 
all  preconceptions  and  prejudices,  to  forget  the 
everlasting  debate  about  New  Testament  descrip- 
tions of  him  and  the  later  theological  controversies 
about  his  person,  and  to  observe  this  Galilean 
in  his  actual  career  as  objectively  as  did  the 
earliest  disciples  and  yet  with  minds  even  more 
open  than  theirs.    When  the  clouds  of  dust  raised 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  65 

by  centuries  of  conflict  and  criticism  finally  lift, 
we  should  see  that  the  naked  fact  is  that  a  new 
type  of  mafij  freshj  strong  and  unique,  appeared  in 
our  race  in  the  first  century.  With  this  simple 
and  yet  pregnant  statement,  we  begin  inde- 
pendently to  make  our  own  sketch  of  the  history 
and  significance  of  Jesus. 

We  shall  not  understand  the  man  or  the  his- 
tory, however,  unless  we  recognize  as  funda- 
mental in  him  a  crystalline  purity  of  heart,  an 
absolute  honesty  and  straightforwardness,  which 
precluded  the  slightest  attempt  to  appear  what 
he  was  not,  and  prevented  him  from  swerving 
for  a  moment  a  hair^s  breadth  from  the  straight 
line  of  right  to  court  popularity,  avoid  pain,  or 
fall  in  with  the  ideas  of  the  crowd.  In  other 
words,  he  was  morally  sound  to  the  core.  His 
hope,  his  perfect  childlike  trust  was  not  in  man, 
but  in  God,  his  Father,  on  whom  he  relied  for 
guidance  and  loving  care.  Yet  no  man  ever 
walked  more  warily  than  he.  In  him  boldness, 
faith  and  wisdom  were  perfectly  combined. 

Immediately  after  his  baptism,  Jesus  was  cer- 
tain that  he  was  the  Messiah  or  Savior  in  the 
sense  already  stated.    The  very  simplicity  of  it 


66  THE  MAN   OF   NAZARETH 

all  was  almost  bafifling,  however.  How  was  he 
to  go  to  work?  What  were  to  be  the  first  steps  of 
this  Nazarene  carpenter,  who  wanted  to  save 
the  world,  and  yet  was  so  different  from  what  a 
Messiah  was  expected  to  be?  On  what  funda- 
mental principles  was  he  to  act?  The  story  of 
the  Temptation  lets  us  into  his  inner  thought  on 
these  questions.  Here  we  see  the  kind  of  things 
he  decided  not  to  do  and  the  positive  laws  of 
conduct  which  emerge  from  the  decisions.  The 
first  temptation  tells  us  that  he  would  not  use 
the  peculiar  power  of  which  he  was  conscious  to 
help  himself  out  of  any  difficulty  or  danger,  even 
to  save  his  life.  "He  saved  others,  himself  he 
could  not  save."  Without  any  reserve,  he  threw 
himself  into  the  service  of  men,  by  this  principle 
burning  all  his  bridges  behind  him.  He  trusted 
only  in  God's  provision  for  his  wants  and  Gk)d's 
aid  in  distress.  Beyond  that  he  would  not  and 
could  not  go.  He  resolved  to  fight  the  fight  with 
advantages  no  greater  than  are  vouchsafed  the 
humblest  and  weakest  of  men.  In  the  second 
contest  he  met  and  conquered  the  lure  to  fanat- 
icism, the  tempting  of  God  in  self-will  and  spiri- 
tual pride.    This  is  one  of  the  commonest,  sub- 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  67 

tlest  and  most  destructive  enticements  and  it 
appeals  most  powerfully  to  men  of  faith.  It 
was  the  ruin  of  all  the  Jewish  Messianic  pre- 
tenders of  that  age.  But  Jesus  decided  that  his 
ministry  should  be  sane.  In  the  third  struggle, 
he  put  away  the  kingly  crown.  He  would  not 
be  the  popular  political  warrior  Messiah,  con- 
quering all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world,  but  would 
accomplish  his  spiritual  ends  by  spiritual  means. 
Thus  he  definitely  repudiated  all  ideas  of  political 
Messiahship  and  broke  with  the  expectations  of 
the  vast  majority  of  the  people.  And  this  was 
final.  On  this  point,  he  never  wavered  nor  com- 
promised. 

Having  made  these  decisions,  he  went  forth 
calm  and  yet  in  deadly  earnest  to  do  his  work 
in  his  own  way.  The  keenness  of  moral  insight, 
the  practical  largeness  of  view,  and  the  strength 
of  character  evinced  in  what  is  called  the  Temp- 
tation must  not  escape  us.  Nor  should  we  forget 
that  the  life  principles  here  disclosed  are  given 
us,  in  all  probability,  in  the  words  of  Jesus  him- 
self, who  could  have  been  the  only  reporter,  and 
that  he  made  the  report  many  months  after  the 
occurrence.    These  considerations  strengthen  our 


68  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

belief  that  Jesus  not  only  made  these  decisions 
at  the  beginning,  but  consciously  recognized  them 
as  determining  the  character  of  his  ministry 
throughout. 

Jesus  had  principles  then,  but  no  elaborate 
plan  of  action.  He  was  mostly  an  opportunist, 
allowing  himself  to  be  led  by  events,  for  in  them 
he  saw  his  Father's  hand.  Yet,  in  great  crises, 
after  long  and  earnest  prayer,  he  boldly  took  the 
initiative.  His  last  journey  to  Jerusalem  is  a 
striking  illustration.  From  the  first  also  he  de- 
cided that  preaching  and  teaching  would  be  his 
method  (cf.  Mark  i:  38,  the  Sower,  the  Tares 
and  his  actual  career)  and  to  that  he  clung  to  the 
very  end.  With  his  conception  of  his  mission 
as  that  of  bringing  men  into  the  blessings  of  his 
own  experience  of  God,  this  was  the  only  simple, 
honest  thing  to  do.  Moreover,  he  conceived  that 
he  ought  to  evangelize  the  whole  Jewish  nation 
and  do  a  work  in  every  province.  So  he  was  a 
teacher  Messiah,  a  prophet  Messiah  in  outward 
form  at  least,  and,  most  naturally,  began  his 
work  by  assisting  John  the  Baptist. 

But  how  could  Jesus  think  and  call  himself 
the    Messiah,    when    that   name    meant    to    the 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  69 

people  something  entirely  different  from  what  he 
intended  to  be?  Was  this  pretending  to  be 
something  which  he  was  not?  Must  it  not  neces- 
sarily lead  to  tragic  misunderstandings?  We 
answer,  To  be  sure,  the  literal  points  of  exact 
agreement  between  the  popular  idea  of  the  Mes- 
siah and  Jesus  were  reduced  to  one,  viz.: — that 
the  Messiah  would  work  miracles.  Jesus  was 
neither  warrior  king  nor,  during  his  lifetime  at 
least,  apocalyptic  judge.  Yet  he  was  God's  spe- 
cial representative  on  earth;  he  came  to  bring 
salvation  and  found  the  kingdom  of  God  and, 
if  so,  there  was  no  other  Jewish  word  to  describe 
him  except  Messiah.  Doubtless  salvation  and 
the  kingdom  of  God  had,  in  his  thought,  a  higher 
and  more  spiritual  meaning  than  they  had  in  the 
thought  of  his  contemporaries.  Indeed  he  him- 
self belonged  to  a  higher  and  more  spiritual 
sphere  than  they  had  yet  conceived,  and  there- 
fore was  very  different  from  the  divine  represen- 
tative whom  they  had  expected.  But  there  was 
no  higher  popular  title  to  describe  him  than 
Messiah,  and  none  so  nearly  fitted  to  set  forth 
his  appointed  work.  The  only  thing  which  he 
could  do  was  to  fill  the  word,  Messiah,  with  the 


yo  THE  MAN  or  NAZARETH 

higher  and  simpler  meaning,  and  this  task  Jesus 
undertook  and  accomplished  with  a  heavenly 
wisdom.  This  attempt  was  justifiable  and  the 
result  in  a  sense  successful  largely  because  popular 
ideas,  on  all  these  subjects,  were  loose  and  con- 
fused; Jesus'  teaching  and  person  were  the  con- 
crete realities  which  brought  the  open-minded  to 
definiteness  and  decision.  In  short,  Jesus  and 
his  mission  found  no  human  words  or  concep- 
tions high  enough  or  simple  enough  to  express 
them,  and  he  necessarily  took  the  highest  words 
and  conceptions  available  and  filled  them  with  a 
new  and  higher  content.  In  one  sense,  he  was 
not  the  Messiah  (of  popular  thought),  but  much 
more  than  the  Messiah. 

If  Jesus  had  not  assumed  Messiahship,  men 
would  have  asked,  What  relation  does  your 
work  bear  to  the  Old  Testament  representations 
of  the  Messiah?  Jesus  could  not  have  said, 
There  will  be  no  Messiah.  He  did  say,  I  am  the 
Messiah,  the  true  Messiah  is  such  as  I. 

What  has  been  said  on  this  point  does  not 
imply  that  Jesus'  idea  that  he  was  the  Messiah 
involved  the  logical  process  just  sketched.  Rather 
as  we  showed  in  the  last  chapter,  the  idea  sprang 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  7 1 

up  in  him  spontaneously  and  necessarily.  He 
could  call  himself  nothing  else,  and  never  thought 
of  calling  himself  anything  else.  I  have  simply 
explained  why,  and  have  justified  Jesus'  spon- 
taneous thought. 

Jesus  also  encountered  the  political  difficulty. 
A  political  Messiah,  a  warrior  Messiah,  a  king 
of  the  Jews,  such  as  the  people  and  especially 
the  Zealots  expected,  would  be  a  traitor  to  the 
Romans,  would  receive  short  shrift  at  their  hands 
if  unsuccessful,  and,  if  successful,  must  lead  an 
insurrection  against  them.  All  these  ideas  were 
abhorrent  to  Jesus,  yet  how  could  he  call  himself 
Messiah  and  not  awaken  these  hopes  and  sug- 
gest these  popular  connotations?  This  was  a 
vital  and  finally  tragic  problem  for  Jesus,  and 
one  to  which  he  was  constantly  alive.  In  an 
atmosphere  palpitating  with  Zealotism,  he  nat- 
urally never  went  about  claiming  to  be  the 
Messiah,  as  many  seem  to  think,  but  always 
exercised  a  holy  discretion  and  reserve  on  this 
point. 

We  find  that  in  consequence  of  the  situation 
which  we  have  described,  Jesus  does  not  begin 
by   announcing    his    Messiahship,    but   by   pro- 


72  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

claiming  and  explaining  the  kingdom  of  God. 
First,  he  preaches  the  spiritual  kingdom,  and 
then  at  last  discloses  himself  as  the  spiritual 
king,  for  he  thinks  the  cause  of  the  righteousness 
of  the  kingdom  is  after  all  summed  up  in  him 
(Matthew  5:  11).  The  kingdom  was  a  common 
idea  and  meant  the  political  Messianic  kingdom. 
Jesus  also  meant  by  it  the  Messianic  reign  and 
realm;  but,  to  emphasize  its  spiritual  origin  and 
character,  called  it  the  kingdom  of  God.  This 
exact  phrase  is  found  only  rarely,  if  at  all,  in  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  prechristian  Jewish  litera- 
ture, but  the  idea  itself  is  very  common. 

Jesus'  thought  about  the  kingdom  and  sov- 
ereignty of  God  was  just  as  much  his  own,  just 
as  independent  of  popular  conceptions  in  its 
origin,  just  as  clearly  foimded  on  his  personal 
experience  as  his  thought  of  Messiahship  and  is 
indeed  the  counterpart  of  it.  It  may  be  defined 
as  follows:  The  Father  was  sovereign  in  his 
own  heart  and  life.  He  had  come  to  induce  all 
men  to  accept  this  blessed  sovereignty  and  to 
enjoy  all  the  satisfactions  and  privileges  of  the 
Father's  love.  With  him  the  Messiah,  the  Mes- 
sianic reign  had  come.    The  kingdom  was  within 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  73 

him.  It  was  to  be  realized  and  set  up  on  the 
earth  now.  Its  full  realization  could,  however, 
come  only  in  the  future  when  it  should  become 
universal,  but  men  could  now  prepare  themselves 
for  the  enjoyment  of  that  future  by  change  of 
mind  and  heart  toward  sin  and  toward  God  and 
righteousness.  So  the  kingdom  was  both  present 
and  future.  Yet  the  future  was  the  more  glorious 
and  characteristic.  The  ethical  conditions  of 
sharing  the  Messianic  blessing  stripped  it  of  the 
last  shred  of  nationalism,  took  it  out  of  politics 
and  guaranteed  its  universal  and  spiritual  nature. 
Yet,  while  beginning  as  an  individual  experience, 
it  involved  new  social  relations  and  indeed  a  new 
and  heavenly  society  on  this  earth,  a  society  in 
which  the  will  of  God  would  be  done  as  perfectly, 
unanimously  and  joyously  as  in  heaven  itself. 
Jesus'  work  was  not  merely  proclaiming  and  ex- 
plaining this  kingdom,  but  also  inducing  men 
to  receive  it  and  enter  into  it,  that  is,  founding 
the  new  society. 

But  entirely  apart  from  the  political  situation 
and  the  circle  of  narrow  Jewish  ideas  in  which 
Jesus  found  himself  (i.  e.,  apart  from  the  political 
and  pedagogical   considerations),   there  was  an- 


74  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

other  reason  why  Jesus  preached  the  kingdom 
first,  and  always  more  emphatically  than  the 
king.  This  reason  is  found  in  the  very  nature 
of  his  mission,  is  therefore  of  primary  significance 
and  would  have  been  operative,  if  the  other  mo- 
tives had  not  existed.  The  kingdom  is  actually 
first  in  importance  in  his  thought  because  the  king- 
dom stood  for  the  experience  of  blessing,  present 
and  future,  into  which  he  conceived  himself  di- 
vinely sent  to  bring  men.  See  his  equation  of  the 
kingdom  and  this  experience  of  blessing  in  the 
Beatitudes,  in  the  representation  of  the  Messianic 
Feast,  in  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  and  in 
the  formula,  "the  good  news  of  the  kingdom." 
To  have  put  himself  to  the  front  would  have  con- 
fused men  on  this  point,  would  have  made  them 
think  that  some  belief  about  him  (i.  e.,  that  he 
was  the  Messiah,  with  appropriate  political  ac- 
tion based  on  that  belief)  was  more  important 
than  entrance  into  the  new  life  of  righteousness 
and  faith.  It  would  have  been  analogous  to  the 
mistake  of  his  church  in  those  ages  when  it  has 
put  the  emphasis  on  an  intellectual  assent  to  the 
deity  of  Christ  rather  than  on  the  new  life  he 
bade  men  lead.     Still  this  experience  of  blessing 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  7$ 

was  to  be  had  only  in  union  with  him,  it  was  the 
experience  of  his  own  heart  which  he  wished  to 
share  with  others.  He  was  after  all  essential  to 
it  and  to  its  vigorous  and  sustained  development. 
In  the  end  he  could  not  be  hid,  the  king  as  well 
as  the  kingdom  must  appear. 

Did  he  at  first  expect  an  immediate  success  in 
his  enterprise?  The  evidence  is  inconclusive  and 
the  answer  doubtful.  Much  is  involved  in  the 
decision,  yet  it  must  be  made.  Else  we  can  never 
gain  clearness  on  the  fundamental  aspects  of 
Jesus'  career  and  must  always  walk  in  the  mists. 
After  long  and  painful  wavering,  I  have  finally 
come  to  believe  that  Jesus  did  at  first  expect 
immediate  success,  and  on  these  grounds: — a. 
Luke  13:  6-9,  the  parable  of  the  Barren  Fig-tree, 
gets  its  whole  point  from  the  fact  that  the  issue 
of  the  salvation  of  the  Jewish  people  through 
Jesus'  work  is  not  yet  certain,  and  with  this  the 
lament  over  Jerusalem,  "How  often  would  I  have 
gathered  thee"  (Matthew  23:  37),  is  to  be  com- 
pared, b.  The  whole  spirit  of  the  early  ministry 
seems  to  exhibit  the  expectation  of  a  sweeping 
victory.  Jesus  seems  at  first  even  to  have  had 
hopes  of  at  least  the  Galilean  Pharisees  (Luke  15: 


76  XHE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

25-32).  c.  The  historical  and  psychological  dif- 
ficulties of  the  opposite  view  are  almost  insu- 
perable, d.  This  goes  well  with  our  statement 
in  Chapter  III  about  the  gradual  development 
of  Jesus'  Messianic  consciousness. 

So  we  believe  that  he  began  his  work  with  the 
greatest  enthusiasm,  though  with  some  misgivings 
caused  by  the  Temptation,  and  that  he  only 
slowly  learned  the  bitter  truth.  Only  toward 
the  middle  of  his  Galilean  activity,  was  he  finally 
convinced  that  his  earthly  ministry  was  doomed 
to  comparative  failure  so  far  as  immediate  results 
were  concerned  and  that  he  could  accomplish  his 
mission  only  through  his  death.  Some  may  ask 
what  would  have  happened  if  Jesus  had  had  the 
success,  which  he  at  first  anticipated.  The  in- 
quiry opens  up  vast  reaches  of  possibilities, 
through  which  we  cannot  find  our  way.  If  the 
question  ever  came  into  Jesus'  mind,  he  doubtless 
left  all  such  future  contingencies  to  his  Father's 
love  and  wisdom. 

Jesus'  popularity  in  Galilee  was  immediate 
and  immense.  Its  basis  was  primarily  the  power 
and  attractiveness  of  his  personality,  his  moral 
and  spiritual  enthusiasm,  the  simplicity  and  sym- 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  77 

pathy  of  his  heart,  the  fresh  note  of  freedom, 
courage  and  hope.  This  was  reinforced  by  the 
authority,  plainness  and  common  sense  of  his 
preaching,  his  miracles,  especially  those  of  heal- 
ing and  casting  out  demons,  and  his  alluring 
promises  of  Messianic  blessings.  Still,  this  popu- 
larity was  hollow  and  Jesus  soon  saw  its  hoUow- 
ness.  The  crowd  was  moved  mostly  by  curiosity, 
wonder  and  a  hope  of  external  advantages  from 
what  they  vaguely  felt  to  be  a  Messianic  move- 
ment. Only  a  comparatively  few  understood  his 
message  of  a  spiritual  salvation  in  a  spiritual 
kingdom,  and  soon  they  too  were  involved  in 
misunderstanding  and  externalism.  So  difficult  is 
it  to  get  purely  spiritual  conceptions  into  men's 
minds.  The  parables  of  the  Sower  and  the  Tares 
evidence  Jesus'  recognition  of  the  superficiality 
of  this  seeming  success. 

During  this  period,  as  we  have  seen,  he  was 
engaged  in  explaining  the  nature  of  the  kingdom, 
but  did  not  openly  or  plainly  declare  his  Messiah- 
ship.     Rather  he   carefully   concealed  it.*     Yet 

^  The  seeming  exceptions  to  this  statement  are  to  be  explained 
from  the  peculiar  geographical  or  personal  circumstances  involved 
in  the  particular  case  or  possibly  by  the  application  of  critical 
principles. 


78  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

the  authority  with  which  he  spoke  and  acted, 
his  mighty  miracles,  the  confessions  of  the  de- 
mons, his  forgiveness  of  sins,  his  superiority  to 
John  the  Baptist  who  had  announced  the  Coming 
One,  his  constant  assertion  that  he  was  God's 
representative  and  an  altogether  extraordinary 
person,  his  authoritative  proclamation  of  an  im- 
minent, indeed  a  present  Messianic  kingdom,  all 
filled  the  people  with  expectation  and  led  them 
to  surmise  that  this  could  be  no  other  than  the 
Messiah,  different  as  he  was  from  what  they  had 
anticipated  the  Messiah  would  be. 

The  Galilean  ministry  consequently  ended  with 
an  explosion  of  Zealotism,  for  which  the  train 
had  long  been  laying.  It  is  commonly  called 
the  Crisis  at  Capernaum.  Its  immediate  causes 
were  three  events  which  occurred  in  closest  con- 
nection: the  Mission  of  the  Twelve,  who  had  not 
freed  themselves  from  the  idea  of  a  political  Mes- 
siah and  who  may  have  been  more  or  less  indis- 
creet in  their  preaching;  the  news  of  the  murder 
of  John  the  Baptist,  which  must  have  profoundly 
stirred  the  people  against  Herod  Anripas  and  the 
Roman  overlordship;  and  the  Feeding  of  the  Five 
Thousand.    The  result  was  that  five  thousand  en- 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  79 

thusiastic  men,  the  nucleus  for  an  effective  army, 
attempted  to  seize  Jesus  and  make  him  a  king 
(a  political  Messiah).  It  was  an  hour  of  gravest 
peril  for  Jesus  and  the  world,  but  he  met  the 
crisis  with  admirable  decision.  In  the  synagogue 
at  Capernaum  the  next  day,  he  explained  to 
the  people  that  he  had  no  material  blessings  for 
them.  He  could  give  them  only  himself,  the 
Bread  of  Life.  Moreover,  he  intimated  that  he 
was  going  to  die.  The  crowds  deserted  him;  it 
looked  as  if  even  the  Twelve  might  waver.  His 
Galilean  popularity  was  at  an  end.  At  the  same 
time  he  finally  broke  with  the  Pharisees  on  the 
subject  of  clean  and  unclean  meats,  but  that 
belongs  to  another  chapter. 

Jesus  now  leaves  Palestine,  for  some  weeks  at 
least,  and  wanders  with  his  disciples  in  Gentile 
territory.  They  are  alone,  no  multitudes  follow 
him.  He  has  been  rejected  both  by  the  people 
and  by  the  scribes.  Not  the  slightest  sign  or 
prospect  of  political  Messiahship  remains.  In 
these  circumstances  he  asks  his  disciples  for  their 
opinion  of  him.  Peter,  their  spokesman,  declares 
him  the  Messiah  in  spite  of  it  all.  He  founds  this 
judgment  not  on  any  external  mark  of  Messiah- 


8o  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

ship,  but  only  on  what  Jesus  was  in  himself  and 
the  spiritual  blessing  he  had  brought  to  his  fol- 
lowers. It  was  at  last  a  confession  of  a  spiritual 
Messiah,  however  confused  with  older  ideas  it 
might  be.  It  was  an  epoch  in  Jesus'  ministry  and 
in  the  history  of  the  kingdom.  And  Jesus  clinched 
it  with  the  definite  announcement  of  his  final  re- 
jection, sufferings  and  death.  This  in  principle 
absolutely  put  an  end  to  all  the  old  Messianic 
conceptions  and  hopes.  A  dying  Messiah  was  no 
Messiah  (in  the  old  sense)  at  all.  But  Jesus  added 
that  all  his  followers  must  be  ready  for  the  cross 
as  well  as  he.  This  was  a  bitter  truth,  fitted  to 
cut  the  root  of  all  extemalism,  pride  and  self- 
seeking,  and  to  leave  them  nothing  outside  the 
spiritual  sphere. 

There  arises  the  difficult  question  how  far 
Jesus  had  made  known  his  Messiahship  to  the 
disciples  before  Peter's  confession  at  Caesarea 
Philippi.  The  Fourth  Gospel  represents  John 
the  Baptist  as  pointing  him  out  as  Messiah,  but 
this  could  have  been  only  to  a  private  circle  of 
those  who  afterwards  became  apostles.  This 
private  circle,  as  well  as  John  the  Baptist,  under- 
stood Messiahship,  however,  in  the  popular  sense, 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  8 1 

more  or  less  spiritualized,  and  were  doubtless 
Strictly  charged  not  to  speak  of  it  in  public  (cf. 
Jesus'  charge  to  the  demonized,  the  leper,  etc.). 
In  the  meantime  we  know  that  Jesus  was  adopt- 
ing the  same  method  of  instruction  in  private 
as  in  public,  i.  e.,  he  was  teaching  a  spiritual 
view  of  the  kingdom  rather  than  proclaiming 
himself  the  Messiah,  but  all  the  while  his  manner 
of  life  and  teaching  was  nevertheless  impressing 
his  unique  personality  and  mission.  The  great 
advance  at  Caesarea  Philippi  was  an  advance  in 
the  spiritual  conception  of  the  Messiahship,  the 
founding  of  all  Messianic  claim  on  the  spiritual 
nature  and  power  of  Jesus.  Once  discovered  in 
the  disciples  by  Jesus,  this  was  reinforced  and 
deepened  by  the  teaching  of  the  cross.  Only  this 
view  of  an  original  belief  of  the  disciples  in  Jesus' 
Messiahship,  together  with  a  growth  in  the  dis- 
ciples' conception  of  it,  can  adequately  explain 
the  phenomena  before  the  confession  of  Peter, 
especially  their  willingness  to  follow  him,  their 
joy  in  his  presence,  their  clinging  to  him  when  all 
deserted  him.  If  the  people  more  than  suspected 
that  he  was  the  Messiah,  surely  the  disciples  must 
have  been  certain  of  it. 


82  THE  MAN  OP  NAZARETH 

Had  Jesus  from  the  first  expected  rejection 
and  a  violent  death?  In  accord  with  the  position 
already  taken  we  must  say  that  he  had  not. 
He  had  at  first  anticipated  that  Israel,  as  a 
whole,  would  accept  him  as  its  spiritual  Messiah 
and  with  him  all  the  blessings  which  he  brought.^ 
Not  without  misgivings,  however,  for  in  the 
Temptation  Jesus  seems  to  have  recognized  and 
weighed  the  might  and  unalterable  opposition 
of  the  forces  which  were  boimd  to  oppose  him. 
The  bitterness  of  his  conflict  with  the  scribes, 
and  especially,  his  growing  distrust  of  the  en- 
thusiasm of  the  multitudes  must  have  changed 
these  misgivings  into  conviction.  There  could  be 
only  one  end.  He  could  not  change  nor  abandon 
his  mission,  he  must  go  on  with  his  work,  and 
the  result,  he  clearly  saw,  must  be  his  violent 
death.  If  so,  he  thought  that  his  death  must  be 
the  Father's  will;  but  it  coidd  not  mean  failure; 
death  must  be  only  a  means  of  victory,  the  climax 
of  his  earthly  mission.    This  is  the  new  experience, 

^  Yet  both  John  the  Baptist  and  Jesus  always  despaired  of  the 
ruling  Sadducaic-Pharisaic  clique  at  Jerusalem  and  of  legalistic 
Judaism.  Their  only  hope  was  that  the  people  as  a  whole  would 
leave  Judaism  and  come  over  to  the  new  spiritual  kingdom,  in 
which  Jesus  would  spiritually  rule. 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  83 

the  new  revelation  which  came  to  Jesus  in  the 
middle  of  his  ministry.  He  must  save  the  world 
by  dying  for  it.  He  must  bring  it  to  know  God 
and  his  richest  blessings  by  the  sacrifice  of  him- 
self. Thus  he  would  redeem  from  the  power  of 
sin  all  who  received  him  and  followed  him  as  the 
dying  Savior,  and  his  death  would  lay  the  foun- 
dation of  a  new  covenant,  a  new  society,  a  new 
Israel. 

Part  II 

And  here  we  meet  the  most  difficult  problem 
of  all.  Jesus  now  saw  that  the  future  and  more 
glorious  kingdom  lay  beyond  his  death.  Yet  he 
was  perfectly  certain  that  he  had  been  called 
to  found  that  kingdom  by  the  impartation  of  his 
own  inner  experience  of  communion  with  God. 
He  was  sure  that  the  kingdom  would  come  and 
in  his  mind  it  was  axiomatic,  nay  almost  a  matter 
of  definition,  that  the  kingdom  could  not  come 
without  him.  Indeed  a  Messianic  reign  without 
a  Messiah  was  to  him  unthinkable.  Now  Jesus  in 
common  with  all  Pharisaic  Jews  believed  in  the 
life  beyond  death,  and  he  had  no  doubt  that  from 
the  cross  he  would  go  to  the  Father;  indeed  many 


84  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

Jews  believed  that  the  Messiah  was  hidden  with 
God.  With  these  thoughts  in  the  background,  we 
can  easily  see  how  Jesus,  after  accepting  the 
tragic  outcome  of  his  earthly  life,  became  convinced 
that  he  would  survive  death  in  the  spiritual  world, 
would  reign  at  the  Father's  right  hand,  would 
personally  inaugurate  the  more  glorious  kingdom 
on  earth  and  rule  in  it  as  king.  This  more  glori- 
ous kingdom  would  only  be  his  own  blessed  ex- 
perience of  God  now  become  universal  and  effec- 
tive in  human  hearts  and  human  society.  All 
this  was  only  another  evidence  of  his  supreme 
confidence  in  his  God-given  mission  and  its  ulti- 
mate triumph.  Indeed  this  thought  of  Jesus 
rests  on  two  universal  principles: — every  divine 
impulse  in  humanity  is  sure  of  final  victory;  and 
every  great  moral  and  spiritual  movement  under 
the  best  conditions  centers  about  a  personality, 
who  is  its  fountain  of  life  and  power.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  Jesus  has  been  the  source  of  spiritual 
energy  to  his  followers  for  twenty  centuries,  is 
today  the  rallying  point  of  their  hope,  and  the 
ground  of  their  unyielding  faith  in  final  triumph. 
Jesus  from  the  beginning  had  never  for  a  mo- 
ment compromised  with  the  political,  nationalistic 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  85 

Messianism  of  his  day,  but  did  he,  on  the  other 
hand,  in  the  idea  of  his  Coming,  accept  in  part 
at  least  the  apocalyptic  idea  of  the  Messiah? 
The  answer  must  be  a  modified  "yes,"  if  we  hold 
to  our  Gospel  data  (cf.  p.  2gL).  There  is  no 
evidence  that  Jesus  ever  read  any  of  the  current 
apocalypses  of  his  day,  but  these  apocalyptic 
ideas  were  common  among  the  people,  springing, 
as  they  did,  out  of  the  Book  of  Daniel,  which 
was  a  part  of  their  Bible.  As  one  of  the  common 
people,  with  the  Old  Testament  in  his  hand, 
Jesus  was  perfectly  familiar  with  apocalyptic 
ideas. 

Jesus'  favorite  self-designation  was  Son  of  Man. 
Where  did  he  get  it?  From  Daniel  7:  13,  14.^ 
To  him  it  meant  Messiah,  especially  in  the  role 
of  Founder  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  He  loved 
the  passage  for  three  reasons  at  least,  first  because 
it  represented  the  Messiah  and  his  kingdom  as  a 
man  over  against  the  dreadful  beasts,  symbolizing 

^  Readers  are  urged  to  study  the  whole  of  Daniel  7.  The  old 
idea,  still  so  common,  that  Jesus  referred  to  his  divine  nature  by 
the  phrase  Son  of  God,  and  to  his  human  nature  by  the  phrase, 
Son  of  Man,  is  no  longer  tenable.  Both  phrases  meant  Mes- 
siah, and  were  related  to  his  Messianic  character  and  mission. 
Certainly  Jesus  during  his  earthly  life  had  no  need  to  emphasize 
his  humanity  which  was  patent  to  everybody. 


86  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

world-empires.  Unlike  them  he  had  no  terrify- 
ing appearance  or  frightful  weapons.  It  was  their 
part  to  destroy  and  tear  to  pieces,  but  it  was  his, 
humanly,  intelligently  and  peacefully,  to  construct 
a  new  society  by  spiritual  means.  The  passage 
also  appealed  to  him  because  it  echoed  his  cer- 
tainty that  this  work  and  kingdom  were  given 
to  him  by  God  and,  lastly,  because  it  declared 
that  his  reign  should  be  world-wide  and  eternal. 
In  the  conflicts,  disappointments  and  crises  of 
his  life,  this  passage  was  to  him  a  guiding  star. 
He  was  that  Son  of  Man.  All  the  plots  of  his 
enemies  against  One  with  such  a  destiny  were 
petty  and  temporary. 

Did  Jesus  by  the  use  of  the  phrase.  Son  of 
Man,  disclose  his  Messiahship  to  the  people? 
This  is  a  very  difficult  question,  for,  since  Jesus 
often  used  the  phrase  publicly,  it  involves  our 
whole  conception  of  a  period  of  reserve  with 
reference  to  the  Messiahship.  The  truth  seems 
to  be  that  by  the  common  people  among  whom 
Jesus  moved  "Son  of  Man''  would  not  be  under- 
stood to  mean  Messiah,  but  would  be  to  them  a 
striking  enigmatic  phrase,  provoking  curiosity 
and  inquiry  as  to  what  Jesus  meant  by  it.    Pos- 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  87 

sibly  in  inner  Scribal  circles,  it  was  more  than  a 
hint  that  he  believed  himself  to  be  Messiah,  and 
yet  a  hint  of  such  a  kind  that  they  could  scarcely 
seize  upon  it  to  his  harm  (cf.  Son  of  Man,  in 
Psalm  8,  Ezekiel,  Book  of  Enoch,  and  John  12: 34). 
The  phrase.  Son  of  Man,  is  derived  from  an 
apocalyptic  passage,  but  may  have  meant  to 
Jesus  nothing  more  at  first  than  what  has  already 
been  stated  (p.  85f.).  After  he  became  convinced 
that  the  future  Messianic  kingdom  lay  beyond 
his  death  however,  the  apocalyptic  phraseology 
became  a  part  of  Jesus'  speech  and  perhaps  in- 
fluenced his  thought.  As  our  records  stand, 
Jesus  plainly  said  that  after  his  death  he  was 
coming  on  the  clouds  of  heaven  to  judge  the 
world  and  inaugurate  the  more  glorious  stage 
of  the  kingdom,  and  that  this  would  occur  before 
the  end  of  the  contemporary  generation.  This 
cannot  be  explained  away  by  a  candid  exegesis. 
And  yet,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  did  not  so  come 
in  the  life-time  of  that  generation.  The  date 
and  the  apocalyptic  manner  of  the  Coming  con- 
stitute two  grave  difficulties  for  modern  men. 
There  seem  to  be  only  two  positions  which  may 
be  taken.     Either  Jesus  spoke  as  the  records 


88  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

stand  and  was  in  error;  this  would  change  tradi- 
tional ideas  about  Jesus,  possibly  seriously.  Or, 
to  choose  the  other  horn  of  the  dilemma,  the 
records  are  not  trustworthy  in  this  matter;  the 
disciples,  full  of  the  political  and  apocalyptic 
Messianism,  misunderstood  Jesus.  It  is  therefore 
a  question  between  a  mistaken  Jesus  and  un- 
trustworthy records,  or  records  untrustworthy  at 
this  point  at  least  (cf.  Mark  13:  30  and  parallels, 
Mark  9:  i  and  parallels,  Matthew  10:  23). 

In  such  a  case,  we  must  proceed  from  the 
known  to  the  imknown.  The  gospels  give  us  the 
Jesus,  whom  we  have  already  presented,  a  Jesus 
great  and  commanding,  profoundly  spiritual  in 
his  views  and  teachings,  simple,  sane,  independ- 
ent, certain  of  himself,  his  mission  and  his  Father. 
Nothing  which  impugns  this  character,  so  naively 
and  simply  drawn  and  yet  so  wonderfully  complex 
and  unique,  can  be  true.  As  to  the  date,  *'in 
that  generation,"  it  may  be  said  that  such  an 
error  is  incidental  and  external,  merely  in  the 
intellectual  sphere,  and  that  it  is  not  inconsistent 
with  the  honesty  or  spiritual  greatness  of  Jesus. 
He  was  perfectly  certain  that  he  was  Messiah. 
The  Messiah  was  to  appear  at  the  end  of  the 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  89 

age.  He  had  appeared.  The  end  was  near.  It 
was  the  error  of  a  hero  of  faith,  filled  with  the 
thought  of  the  time.  Or,  if  this  does  not  satisfy 
us,  it  is  open  to  us  to  say  that  Jesus  predicted 
the  coming  of  the  Spirit,  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  the  victory  of  his  church  and  his  own 
personal  Coming,  the  first  two  at  least  in  that 
generation;  and  that  the  disciples,  obsessed  with 
apocalyptic  notions,  unconsciously  transferred 
this  date  to  his  personal  Coming,  and  gradually 
emphasized  his  Coming  out  of  all  due  propor- 
tion. 

As  to  the  apocalyptic  form,  "in  the  clouds  of 
heaven,''  it  may  be  said  that  the  catastrophic 
feature  of  it  is  not  inconsistent  with  modern 
theories  of  evolution  in  biology  or  history.  Geol- 
ogy now  knows  catastrophic  periods.  The  burst- 
ing of  spring,  the  emergence  of  the  butterfly, 
the  birth  of  the  child,  are  all  catastrophic  and 
each  brings  in  a  new  age.  A  few  years  or  months 
or  even  days  have  often  changed  the  whole  course 
of  history,  and  similarly  have  produced  new 
eras.  Nor  is  such  an  idea,  when  rightly  con- 
ceived, inconsistent  with  Jesus'  teaching  of  the 
gradual  growth  of  the  kingdom  in  other  passages. 


go  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

Gradual  growth  often  ends  in  a  catastrophic 
consummation.  Why  not  in  the  case  of  the  king- 
dom? 

Nor  are  we  to  think  that  Jesus  changed  his 
fundamental  spiritual  attitude  and  conceptions 
when  he  adopted  the  apocalyptic  form.  He  who 
employed  the  Jewish  ideas  of  kingdom  and  Mes- 
siah to  express  himself  to  his  followers,  yet  re- 
moulded them  for  his  own  uses,  filled  them  with 
a  new  content,  and  partially  transferred  them  to 
the  present,  did  not  fall  a  foolish  victim  to 
apocalyptic  mania;  but,  when  the  new  idea  of 
final  spiritual  victory  in  spite  of  death  demanded 
assertion,  he  did  as  he  had  done  before,  he  took 
the  apt  apocal3^tic  form,  familiar  to  all  Jews, 
and  through  that  taught  them  figuratively  things 
which  he  could  not  have  expounded  literally  and 
definitely.*  Indeed  the  latter  course  would  have 
been  inadequate  and  ineffective,  and  therefore 
stupid  in  the  circumstances.  And  when  we  note 
Jesus'  free  use  of  parable  and  metaphor,  the 
figurative    nature   of    the    Daniel   passage   itself 

^In  fact,  there  may  have  been  sayings  of  Jesus,  capable  of 
explaining  much  along  this  line,  which,  not  being  understood 
by  the  disciples,  disappeared  before  they  found  a  place  in  the 
tradition. 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  9I 

from  which  "the  clouds  of  heaven"  are  derived/ 
when  we  study  how  Jesus  himself  reported  his 
baptism  and  temptation,  and  his  vision  of  the 
fall  of  Satan  in  Luke  10:  18,  it  is  open  to  those 
of  us,  who  wish  to  do  so,  to  explain  the  form  of 
the  Coming  "on  the  clouds  of  heaven"  as  figura- 
tive, the  form,  but  not  the  substance:  the  figure  is 
the  figure  of  something. 

If  we  can  no  longer  be  satisfied  with  the  literal 
"Coming  in  clouds,"  we  may  therefore  believe 
that  Jesus  taught  that  towards  the  end  of  that 
generation  or,  possibly,  at  some  indefinite  future 
time,  there  would  occur  a  spiritual  event  in  hu- 
man history,  so  wonderful  that  all  would  sense 
it  beyond  mistake,  so  plain  that  all  would  recog- 
nize its  significance,  so  mighty  as  to  inaugurate  a 
new  age  and  judge  and  destroy  all  hostile  forces, 
so  personal  as  to  constitute  for  his  people  and  all 
others  a  coming  of  Christ  Jesus  himself,  his  final 
triimiph,  the  climax  and  consummation  of  his 
Messianic  work.  This  event  must  be  conceived 
as  still  future,  for  its  chief  characteristic  is  that 
it  will  usher  in  an  age  when  God's  will  shall  be 

iNote  that,  throughout  the  whole  Bible,  the  "cloud"  is  the 
cx)nstant  symbol  of  the  manifested  presence  of  God. 


92  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

done  on  earth  as  it  is  done  in  heaven.  Come 
quickly,  even  so,  come.  Lord  Jesus. 

From  the  time  of  Caesarea  Philippi,  Jesus'  prin- 
cipal thought  was  to  complete  his  Messianic 
work  by  his  death  at  Jerusalem  (cf.  p.  82f.).  On 
the  way  to  the  capital,  he  evangelized  Perea. 
This  Perean  ministry  followed  the  Hues  of  the 
earlier  ministry  in  Galilee,  but  was  briefer,  more 
decisive  and  solemn.  He  now  knew  that  nothing 
which  occurred  in  Perea  could  change  the  final 
result. 

At  the  end  of  the  Perean  ministry,  he  entered 
Jerusalem  with  a  Passover  throng  of  Pereans  and 
GaHleans.  Contrary  to  his  usual  custom,  Jesus 
had  carefully  planned  this  Triumphal  Entry. 
It  was  a  public  announcement  of  his  Messiah- 
ship,  and  a  demand  that  he  be  received  as  Mes- 
siah by  the  nation  and  its  official  leaders.  He 
could  not  allow  any  misunderstanding  on  that 
point  at  the  end.  If  he  is  to  die,  he  will  die  as  a 
rejected  Messiah. 

Some  have  thought  that  Jesus  here  compro- 
mised with  the  idea  of  political  Messiahship,  or  at 
least  gave  his  followers  that  impression.  It  may 
be  conceded  that  this  was  the  view  of  the  multi- 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  93 

tude,  but  Jesus  is  not  to  blame.  He  had  done 
everything  to  make  them  think  otherwise.  We 
cite  his  whole  ministry  and  teaching  of  a  spiritual 
kingdom  up  to  this  time  and,  especially,  his  de- 
cisive action  in  the  crisis  at  Capernaum;  the 
peaceful  emblem  of  the  ass  and  the  fact  that 
his  followers  had  no  weapons  but  palm  branches, 
cf.  John  18:  36;  Jesus'  tears  and  lament  over 
Jerusalem  (Luke  19:  41-44)  which  was  not  about 
to  be  saved  by  a  conquering  Messiah,  but  about 
to  be  destroyed  by  its  enemies;  and,  lastly,  his 
failure  to  follow  up  the  Triumphal  Entry  by 
energetic  measures.  At  any  rate,  the  people 
were  soon  to  be  undeceived  by  his  words  about 
tribute  to  Caesar  and  by  the  cross. 

During  Passion  week,  he  was  asked  about  pay- 
ing tribute  to  the  Roman  government.  It  was  a 
crucial  question.  If  he  should  fall  in  with  the 
popular  view  of  his  Zealot  followers  and  take  sides 
against  paying  tribute,  he  would  immediately  be 
involved  in  a  nationalistic  political  movement, 
which  could  mean  nothing  else  than  treason  to 
Rome,  and,  therefore,  either  success  as  a  warrior 
Messiah  or  a  traitor's  death.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  should  advise  paying  tribute,  he  would 


94  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

appear  a  traitor  to  the  dearest  national  hopes, 
and  would  take  the  heart  out  of  the  once  more 
enthusiastic  multitude.  He  did  not  hesitate  a 
moment.  He  chose  the  latter  course,  which  left 
him  without  enthusiastic  friends,  but  left  his 
enemies  without  a  charge  which  they  could  prefer 
against  him  before  the  Roman  governor. 

This  was  a  source  of  the  most  serious  embar- 
rassment to  the  Jewish  leaders.  Even  before 
their  own  court,  dependent  as  it  was  on  the 
Romans,  they  were  at  a  loss  for  a  charge  against 
this  simple  preacher  and  prophet.  Finally,  they 
condemned  him  to  death  for  blasphemy,  on  his 
confession  of  his  Messiahship.  Yet  they  could  not 
execute  their  own  sentence,  but  must  hand  him 
over  to  the  Romans,  and  blasphemy  was  not  a 
capital  charge  in  a  Roman  court.  They,  there- 
fore, charged  Jesus  before  Pilate  with  claiming 
to  be  a  political  Messiah  ("Christ  a  king," 
Luke  23:  2,  cf.  Mark  15:  2)  despite  his  answer 
about  the  tribute.  Pilate  is  not  incHned  to  take 
seriously  such  a  charge  against  this  simple  but 
impressive  peasant,  and,  after  Jesus'  private 
explanation  that  his  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world 
Qohn  18:  36),  is  convinced  of  his  innocence,  and 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  MESSIANISM  95 

yields  finally  only  to  political  pressure  and  self- 
interest. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  Jesus  died  rather  than 
deny  that  he  was  the  Messiah.  The  solemn  cir- 
cumstances of  his  final  confession  (Mark  14:  60- 
64  and  parallels)  have  already  been  described 
(p.  36f.)  but  must  be  repeated  here.  He  stood 
before  the  supreme  court  of  his  nation;  the  re- 
ligious and  political  head  of  the  nation,  the  High 
Priest,  put  the  question;  Jesus  was  under  oath; 
he  knew  that  on  his  answer  depended  his  life  or 
death.  He  might  have  explained  or  equivocated, 
but  he  did  neither.  He  said,  "I  am  the  Mes- 
siah," and  more,  "you  shall  one  day  believe  it, 
when  you  stand  before  my  judgment  seat,  as  I 
now  stand  before  yours."  The  charge  made  be- 
fore Pilate  shows  that  he  was  condemned  as  a 
political  Messiah,  a  traitor  to  Rome.  And  the 
title  on  the  cross,  the  bitter  sarcasm  of  the  un- 
willing but  weak  judge,  completes  the  proof  of  it. 
It  was  a  false  charge,  and  both  the  Sanhedrin 
and  Pilate  knew  it.  Still  Jesus  had  laid  himself 
open  to  it  by  applying  to  himself  the  Messianic 
title  in  a  sense  different  from  that  in  which  it 
was  popularly  used. 


g6  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

We  have  noticed  in  Chapter  III  that,  in  the 
development  of  Jesus,  his  sense  of  a  blessed, 
intimate,  unique  fiHal  relation  to  God  was  the 
root  of  his  belief  that  he  was  the  Messiah.  And 
although  that  belief  was  inevitable  to  him  in  his 
environment,  and  necessary  to  his  self-expression, 
still  it  must  be  said  that  the  Messianic  title  was 
inadequate,  and  always  likely  to  be  misunderstood. 
He  was  Messiah  in  his  own  sense,  and  he  was  not 
Messiah  in  the  popular  sense.  He  was  Messiah, 
but  he  was  more  than  Messiah.  He  was  a  per- 
sonage greater  than  the  race  had  ever  known  or  im- 
agined before.  The  large  prominence  which  Jesus 
gave  to  the  idea  of  the  kingdom,  and  his  remark- 
able reserve  in  using  the  word,  Messiah,  along  with 
his  evident  consciousness  of  his  own  greatness, 
show  that  he  himself  was  fully  aware  of  all  this. 
We  do  not  now  need  the  Messianic  title  to  explain 
him.  Indeed  the  title  is  Jewish,  belongs  to  a  past 
age  and  needs  itself  to  be  explained.  The  Church 
has  been  divinely  guided  in  relegating  it  to  history, 
and,  for  popular  impression,  calling  him  the  Son  of 
God  and  the  Savior  of  the  world.  And  yet,  had 
he  not  used  the  title,  we  might  never  have  seen 
that  he  was  far  greater  than  all  that  it  implied. 


CHAPTER  V 

HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  LEGALISM 

The  Judaism  of  Jesus'  day  was  a  retrogression 
from  the  religion  of  the  Old  Testament,  especially 
from  the  high  level  of  the  prophets  and  the  nobler 
psalms.  It  so  exaggerated  the  ceremonial  and 
legal  at  the  expense  of  the  moral  and  religious 
in  the  scriptures  that  almost  the  whole  reli- 
gious interest  centered  in  the  keeping  of  a  set 
of  precepts.  Rehgion  thus  became  externahzed, 
mechanical,  superficial,  burdensome.  Obedience 
to  the  letter  of  the  law  bade  fair  to  become  the 
whole  of  piety.  Communion  with  God  faded  out 
of  popular  thought  and  language.  The  inevitable 
tendency  was  to  foster  self-righteousness,  pettiness, 
hypocrisy,  casuistry,  and  downright  immorality. 
This  system  we  call  Legalism.^ 

The  Pharisees  were  the  especial  exponents  of 
this  system,  the  perfect  patterns  of  legalistic 
piety.    They  were  the  leaders  of  the  people,  and 

1  See  p.  26f .  on  the  Pharisees  and  Legalism. 
97 


98  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

generally  admired  and  reverenced  for  their  pains- 
taking performance  of  the  law.  Yet  we  must  not 
overdraw  the  picture.  There  were  many  devout 
men  in  Israel,  who  cherished  true  religion  and 
an  earnest  morality  even  in  that  legalistic  age. 
Not  all  the  Pharisees  themselves  were  hypocrites. 
There  were  great  souls  among  them,  like  Hillel, 
GamaHel,  and  Saul  of  Tarsus,  but,  as  the  last 
named  said  after  his  conversion,  they  were  on  the 
wrong  track.  The  fact  is  that  the  Pharisees  and 
their  sympathizers  had  about  all  the  religion 
that  was  left  in  Israel.  At  the  time  of  the  Mac- 
cabean  uprising,  true  piety  was  like  to  perish 
from  the  earth,  but  the  predecessors  of  the  Phari- 
sees saved  it  in  that  crisis  by  magnificent  devotion 
and  heroism.  Pharisaism  has  been  the  backbone 
of  Judaism  from  the  days  of  Jesus  until  now,  a 
potent  though  isolated  force.  Still  most  of  the 
leading  Jerusalem  Pharisees  of  his  time  were  all 
that  Jesus  painted  them,  proud,  self-righteous, 
hypocritical,  covetous  and  immoral. 

Jesus  nourished  his  soul  on  the  Old  Testament, 
which  he  knew  thoroughly  and  quoted  with 
perfect  ease.  He  found  in  it  a  divine  revelation. 
He  never  had  a  thought  of  setting  up  a  new 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  LEGALISM  99 

religion  with  no  root  in  the  old.  The  Old  Testa- 
ment was  his  Bible,  he  recognized  his  Father  in 
its  (jod,  and  all  he  ever  said  which  goes  beyond 
the  Old  Testament  was  a  natural  outgrowth 
from  it.  It  is  probably  true  that  in  a  general 
way  he  even  accepted  the  Pharisaic  theology 
except  in  those  points  in  which  he  criticized  it. 
The  law  and  the  prophets,  as  interpreted  by  the 
scribes,  were  the  background  of  his  life  and 
thought.  Indeed  Jesus  was  brought  up  in  the 
atmosphere  of  Pharisaism.  Doubtless  his  rela- 
tives belonged  to  the  circle  of  the  Devout,  and 
he  breathed  the  freer  air  of  Galilee,  but  the  Phari- 
see was  even  there  the  beau  ideal  of  the  good 
man,  and  he  himself  would  naturally  have  been 
of  the  same  mind. 

But,  although  growing  to  maturity  in  such  an 
environment,  Jesus  was  the  instinctive  foe  of 
legalism.  The  simplicity,  freedom,  freshness  and 
joy  of  his  spiritual  life,  his  unerring  moral  in- 
sight, the  breadth  of  his  mind,  the  universality 
of  his  sympathies,  and  the  greatness  of  his  per- 
sonality were  entirely  out  of  harmony  with  the 
Pharisaic  system.  He  could  not  be  cramped  and 
bound  by  that  strait-jacket.     He   was   sure  to 


lOO  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

rebel.    The  clash  was  inevitable  and  the  breach, 
once  made,  could  never  be  closed. 

Jesus  began  his  Galilean  ministry  and  laid 
the  foundation  of  his  popularity  by  casting  out  a 
demon  on  the  Sabbath  day  and  healing  a  leper 
by  a  touch.  These  unlawful  acts  led  the  Phari- 
sees to  begin  to  watch  him,  and  we  can  trace 
the  history  of  their  feelings  through  the  stages 
of  surprise,  suspicion,  criticism,  bitter  opposi- 
tion and  conspiracy  to  kill.  These  stages  Jesus 
met  by  explanation,  argument,  demonstration 
(Mark  2:  1-12),  appeal  to  better  feeling  and 
common  sense,  finally,  however,  by  aggressive 
assault,  open  break  and  denunciation.  Jesus' 
initial  attempts  to  win  at  least  the  Galilean 
Pharisees  are  too  frequently  disregarded,  but 
can  be  plainly  seen  in  his  first  mild  replies  (Mark 
2:  1-22,  Luke  5:  39,  7:  36-50),  and  his  tactful 
invitation  to  the  Pharisees  to  come  in  and  share 
the  joy  of  the  new  kingdom  (Luke  15:  25-32). 
It  is  clear  that  the  Pharisees  began  the  conflict 
by  criticising  Jesus  and  trying  to  force  him  to 
respect  their  views.  Finally,  however,  Jesus 
carried  the  war  into  their  territory,  and  with 
astonishing  boldness  attacked  the  whole  system 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  LEGALISM  lOI 

of  legalism,  denouncing  its  advocates  as  hypo- 
crites, worthy  of  the  condemnation  of  God. 

Jesus  objected  to  the  fundamentals  of  legalism: 
(i)  to  its  externality,  its  conception  of  religion 
as  a  round  of  outward  duties  and  ceremonies,  its 
careful  washing  of  the  outside  of  the  cup,  but 
neglect  of  the  things  of  the  heart  within;  (2)  to 
its  lack  of  a  real  distinction  between  duties,  all 
being  in  its  view  equally  important  as  equally 
involving  obedience  to  the  law,  until  at  last  the 
pettiest  prescriptions  got  the  most  attention,  and 
ethics  as  well  as  true  religion  bade  fair  to  be 
ignored;  (3)  to  its  casuistry,  its  endless  hair- 
splitting, which  rotted  the  very  fibre  of  sincerity 
and  candor,  inevitably  tended  to  hypocrisy  and 
double-dealing  and  was  a  convenient  and  oft- 
used  cloak  for  covetousness  and  lust;  (4)  to  its 
burdensomeness,  its  impossible  exactions,  a  heavy 
yoke  which  men  were  unable  to  bear  and  which 
banished  all  the  spontaneity  and  joy  of  a  genuine 
religion;  (5)  to  its  exclusiveness,  its  contempt  for 
those  who  did  not  attain  its  standard,  its  critical 
censorious  attitude,  its  remorseless  condemna- 
tions, its  holier-than-thou  spirit;  (6)  to  its  self- 
righteousness,    pride    and    ostentation,    springing 


I02  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

out  of  its  superficial  externalism  and  exclusive- 
ness.  Since  Jesus  got  through  with  this  feature 
of  Pharisaism,  self-righteousness  has  never  been 
good  form.  It  has  never  recovered  from  the 
mortal  blow  he  gave  it,  though  under  the  guise 
of  self-salvation  it  has  again  attained  quite  a 
vogue.  (7)  Jesus  also  objected  to  the  legalists* 
thought  of  God,  as  a  mere  law-giver  and  judge, 
stern  and  unsjonpathetic,  more  concerned  with 
the  maintenance  of  law  than  with  the  salvation 
of  men.  Indeed  Pharisaism  so  filled  the  whole 
horizon  with  the  thought  of  the  law,  that  the 
idea  of  God  and  immediate  relation  to  him  was 
shoved  into  the  background. 

No  wonder  that  the  Pharisees  rejected  John  the 
Baptist  and  Jesus,  whose  religion  was,  in  direct 
contradistinction  to  theirs,  a  religion  of  the  heart, 
of  the  inner  man;  of  indifference  to  ritual  and 
ceremony  in  comparison  with  justice,  mercy,  faith 
and  love  to  God;  a  religion  of  great  principles 
of  action,  lived  out  in  all  sincerity,  joy  and  free- 
dom; of  S3anpathy,  self-sacrifice  and  love  for  the 
weak  and  the  fallen.  Jesus  put  his  seal  of  ap- 
proval on  the  humble  heart,  filled  with  a  sense  of 
its  need,  and  hungering  and  thirsting  after  right- 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  LEGALISM  IO3 

eousness.  His  teaching  of  the  Good  Shepherd 
seeking  the  lost  sheep  and  of  the  free  forgiveness 
of  prodigals,  denied  the  fundamental  premise  of 
Pharisaism,  i.  e.,  that  men  could  and  must  de- 
serve and  earn  salvation  by  a  record  of  external 
good  works;  and  established  forever  the  doctrine 
of  God's  grace  or  undeserved  favor  toward  the 
repenting  sinner.  Right  in  line  with  this,  he 
emphasized  the  thought  of  God,  his  nearness 
and  love,  his  sympathy  with  men,  and  put  the 
name.  Father,  into  the  foreground  in  all  his  speech. 
To  Jesus'  mind,  fellowship  with  the  Father  was 
the  most  valuable  and  important  thing  in  religion. 
The  whole  manner  of  Jesus'  teaching  corre- 
sponded to  his  inner  spirit.  The  Pharisaic  teachers 
were  really  lawyers.  Everything  with  them  was 
second  hand.  They  dealt  in  quotation,  tradition, 
precedent.  They  were  mere  echoes  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  decisions  of  earlier  scribes. 
They  were  always  debating  the  same  old  ques- 
tions of  casuistry.  They  prided  themselves  on 
being  cisterns,  rather  than  springs.  Jesus,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  independent,  fresh  and  orig- 
inal, a  prophet  rather  than  a  lawyer.  The  people 
soon  discovered  that  he  spoke  on  his  own  initia- 


I04  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

tive  and  not  as  the  scribes.  He  did  not  quibble 
or  debate,  but  poured  out  of  a  great  soul  words 
of  life  and  power.  He  did  not  deal  with  the  mi- 
nutiae of  conduct,  but  with  the  basic  principles 
of  action.  He  did  not  preach  the  letter  that 
killed  all  freedom  and  joy,  but  the  life-giving 
Spirit.  Here  was  a  new  voice,  a  new  method,  a 
new  gospel  and  a  new  tone  of  authority. 

Jesus  clashed  with  the  Pharisees  not  only  on 
the  fundamentals,  but  also  on  the  inferences  and 
practical  details  of  legalism. 

The  Pharisees  had  built  up  a  whole  system  of 
traditional  interpretation  of  the  law,  which  they 
considered  of  equal  vaHdity  with  the  law  itself, 
and  in  practice  more  important.  This  tradition, 
as  it  was  called,  corresponds  to  the  body  of  legal 
precedents  and  judicial  decisions,  which  plays  so 
great  a  part  in  our  own  courts.  It  originated  in 
the  desire  to  apply  the  law  to  all  the  innumerable 
vicissitudes  of  life,  and  was  to  a  certain  extent 
inevitable  to  a  legal  system,  which  lay  back  of 
the  life  of  a  people.  The  trouble  was  that  its 
framers  in  the  multiplicity  of  applications  lost 
sight  of  great  leading  principles,  and  that  this 
law  was  religious  as  well  as  social.    As  a  result, 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  LEGALISM  105 

life  was  fettered  just  where  it  most  needed  to  be 
spontaneous  and  free,  and  the  tradition  in  many 
cases  was  a  glaring  reversal  of  the  true  spirit  of 
the  law.  It  was  only  "a  tradition  of  men/'  any- 
way, and  could  not  rightly  be  proclaimed  as 
divine  in  its  sanctions  and  obligation.  Jesus  did 
not  feel  bound  by  it.  He  repudiated  its  authority, 
and,  what  was  more  to  the  point,  the  autliority 
of  its  makers,  the  scribes. 

The  law  of  the  Sabbath  was  the  masterpiece 
of  the  scribes  for  particularity,  casuistry,  ab- 
surdity and  downright  oppression.  It  aimed  to 
decide  in  a  binding  way  every  possible  question 
of  conduct  on  the  Sabbath.  In  the  end,  it  was 
such  a  maze  of  disjointed  precepts  that  no  ordi- 
nary person  could  even  keep  it  in  mind;  it  made  a 
good  memory  a  prime  prerequisite  of  piety.  Jesus 
let  in  the  light  of  religious  common  sense,  founded 
all  on  the  principle  of  a  Sabbath  made  for  man, 
appealed  to  the  fair-mindedness  of  his  hearers 
against  Pharisaic  bigotry  and  severity,  and  al- 
ways won  the  day  with  the  common  people. 

Jesus  also  opposed  the  whole  teaching  of  cere- 
monial defilement,  the  law  of  clean  and  unclean. 
This   was   a   pecuKarly   external   piece   of   legal 


I06  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

mechanism,  applied  especially  to  foods,  but  also 
to  touching  unclean  persons  and  things, — Gentiles 
and  dead  bodies,  for  instance, — and  involved 
endless  purificatory  washings.  Jesus  seems  to 
have  openly  disregarded  it  from  the  first.  He 
ate  with  unclean  publicans  and  sinners,  allowed 
a  sinful  woman  to  touch  him,  himself  touched  a 
leper,  and  was  careless  about  his  ceremonial 
ablutions  before  meals.  All  these  things  he  de- 
fended on  the  ground  of  his  love  for  the  lost  and 
the  necessity  of  saving  them,  and,  as  to  clean 
and  unclean  foods,  he  practically  denied  the  dis- 
tinction and  abolished  that  whole  section  of  the 
law,  declaring  in  general  that  legalism  was  a 
plant  which  his  heavenly  Father  had  not  planted, 
and  that  it  was  bound  for  the  ditch  of  destruc- 
tion (Mark  7:  1-23  and  parallels). 

This  last  item  brings  up  the  whole  question  of 
Jesus'  attitude  towards  the  Old  Testament  Law. 
Jesus  kept  the  law,  both  ceremonial  and  moral,  ^ 
except  as  hereinafter  indicated,  and  even  bade 
his  disciples  keep  the  tradition  too  when  not  in- 

^  As  a  preliminary  to  the  discussion  it  should  be  said,  that  how- 
ever useful  and  justifiable  the  modern  distinction  between  the 
moral  and  the  ceremonial  law  may  be,  neither  Jesus  nor  anybody 
else  in  New  Testament  times  ever  clearly  made  it. 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  LEGALISM  I07 

consistent  with  morality  (Matthew  23:  2).  Only 
thus  could  he  have  gotten  the  ear  of  the  people 
in  that  legalistic  age.  He  was  really  more  revolu- 
tionary in  teaching  than  in  conduct.  Indeed  he 
was  at  heart  conservative  in  the  best  sense.  To 
him  the  Old  Testament  was  a  revelation  of  right- 
eousness. He  felt  that  it  was  all  summed  up  in 
love  to  God  and  love  to  man.  He  founded  his 
whole  life  and  teaching  upon  it.  He  maintained 
and  exalted  the  moral  law  as  no  one  before  him 
had  ever  done.  On  the  other  hand,  while  he 
generally  kept  the  ceremonial  law,  he  laid  no 
emphasis  on  it,  treated  it  with  indifference,  and 
evidently  took  no  interest  in  it. 

Did  Jesus  in  any  particular  abrogate  the  Old 
Testament  law?  The  first  chapter  of  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  (Matthew  5:  17-48)  is  often  cited 
in  proof  that  he  did.  To  be  sure,  we  here  see 
Jesus  assuming  authority  as  a  teacher  that  puts 
him  above  Israel's  great  Law-giver.  "Moses  said 
thus  and  so  to  those  of  old  times,  but  I  say  unto 
you."  Yet  Jesus  begins  the  first  great  section  of 
the  Sermon  by  declaring  that  he  had  not  come 
to  destroy  the  law  by  loose  interpretation,  that 
the  moral  content  of  every  least  precept  must 


I08  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

come  to  fruition,  that  he  had  come  however  to 
fill  the  law  with  deeper  meaning  and  to  carry  it 
on  to  a  new  stage  of  development,  and  this,  in 
5:  21-48,  he  proceeds  to  do  with  a  consciousness 
of  power  and  profundity  of  moral  insight  which 
has  been  the  wonder  of  the  ages  and  secures  the 
assent  of  every  heart.  It  cannot  be  truly  said 
that  in  this  chapter  Jesus  abrogates  the  law.  He 
deepens  it,  and  makes  it  more  positive  and 
spiritual. 

In  the  matter  of  the  Sabbath,  Jesus  broke  ex- 
plicitly only  with  the  scribal  tradition,  but  the 
spirit  of  his  teaching  and  the  implications  of  his 
principles  do  certainly  abrogate  the  severer  and 
more  particularistic  Sabbath  precepts  of  the  Old 
Testament  as  well,  and  are  inconsistent  with 
much  of  the  Old  Testament  point  of  view  on  the 
subject.  The  story  of  the  man  who  gathered 
sticks  on  the  Sabbath  (Num.  15:  32-36),  for 
instance,  is  certainly  not  in  line  with  the  spirit 
of  Jesus. 

On  the  subject  of  divorce,  Jesus  appealed  from 
the  laxity  of  Moses,  whom  he  excuses,  to  the  more 
fundamental  teachings  of  Genesis  and  Malachi. 
Fasting,  to  be  sure,  is  only  rarely  prescribed  in 


HOW  JESUS  HANDLED  LEGALISM  lOQ 

the  old  scriptures,  but  Jesus  would  make  it  en- 
tirely voluntary,  the  expression  of  a  spiritual 
mood. 

There  can  however  be  no  doubt  or  equivoca- 
tion with  reference  to  Jesus'  attitude  on  the  sub- 
ject of  clean  and  unclean.  This  is  an  Old  Testa- 
ment prescription.  He  not  only  disobeyed  it  by 
touching  a  leper,  but  distinctly  abrogated  the 
whole  code,  so  far  as  it  had  to  do  with  food  at 
least.  He  here  spoke  as  if  superior  to  the  Old 
Testament,  and  acted  as  though  he  were  Lord 
in  the  sphere  in  which  it  had  hitherto  ruled 
supreme. 

How  can  we  reconcile  his  love  and  honor  for 
the  Old  Testament,  with  this  implied  and  open 
abrogation  of  parts  of  it?  The  answer  is  that  he 
did  not  look  on  the  Old  Testament  as  a  set  of 
external  precepts,  a  legal  code,  but  he  penetrated 
to  its  inner  character  and  meaning.  It  was  to 
him  a  book  of  rehgion.  It  was  a  revelation  of 
God,  of  righteousness,  of  love,  of  hope.  As  such 
he  honored  and  loved  it.  "It  was  as  if  he  had 
skipped  the  temporary  in  the  scriptures  in  the 
reading,  so  Httle  did  it  interest  or  busy  him.'' 
He  was  not  a  revolutionary,  he  built  on  the  old; 


no  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

but  he  was  a  progressive,  he  went  on  to  the  new. 
Yet  he  loved  more  to  dwell  on  the  old  in  the  new 
light,  than  to  set  the  new  against  the  old  as 
something  opposite  and  antagonistic.  Indeed  he 
never  did  this  except  when  forced  to  it.  He  was 
instinctively  conscious  of  genetic  and  evolutionary 
connections,  but  when  the  old  had  had  its  day 
and  stood  squarely  in  the  way  of  the  new,  he 
decisively  swept  it  aside. 


CHAPTER  VI 

JESUS'  POSITIVE  TEACHING 

Jesus  is  rightly  called  "The  Great  Teacher," 
for,  in  the  realm  of  religion  and  morals,  he  is 
absolutely  supreme.  The  profounder  side  of  life 
is  his  chosen  sphere.  He  taught  men  how  to 
live  richly,  deeply,  nobly.  "He  made  religion  a 
new  thing  and  transfigured  the  religious  life." 
Yet  it  must  always  be  remembered  that  he  was 
not  a  teacher  only  or  principally.  He  was  also  a 
man  of  character  and  a  man  of  action.  He 
founded  the  Kingdom  of  God.  What  he  was, 
what  he  taught,  and  what  he  did,  together  con- 
stitute his  title  to  be  called  Savior  and  Lord. 

The  originality  of  Jesus'  teaching  is  not  ab- 
solute. If  it  had  been,  it  would  have  been  par- 
tial and  one-sided.  Indeed  he  never  claimed 
originality,  but  frankly  founded  his  teaching  on 
the  great  religious  conceptions  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Many  of  his  ideas  may  be  found  in  the 
contemporary  Jewish  literature,  rare  grains  of  gold 
in  heaps  of  sand,  and  in  the  works  of  Graeco- 

III 


112  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

Roman  and  Oriental  sages,  who  lived  before  him. 
Yet  it  is  most  improbable  that  Jesus  had  ever 
read  any  of  these  sages  or  even  heard  of  the  most 
of  them.  He  and  they  were  dealing  with  essen- 
tially the  same  subject,  and  an  occasional  simi- 
larity in  thought  or  speech  is  not  at  all  strange. 
Yet  in  almost  all  these  parallels,  Jesus  is  the  pro- 
founder,  the  more  comprehensive  or  the  more  per- 
fect in  form.  In  fact,  it  seems  as  though  in  these 
other  teachers,  we  see  candles  throwing  their  light 
out  into  the  darkness,  while  Jesus  gathers  up  all 
their  partial  truths  with  his  own  into  one  incandes- 
cent shaft  of  light,  which  turns  the  night  into  day. 
Yet,  in  the  large  sense,  Jesus'  originality  is  in- 
contestable. It  consisted  of  four  elements.  The 
first  was  his  matchless  insight  into  the  human 
heart,  its  motives  and  its  needs.  Those  pure  and 
loving  eyes  searched  the  depths  of  the  soul,  and  he 
knew  how  to  recreate  men  by  the  touch  of  truth 
and  power.  We  wearily  turn  thousands  of  pages 
of  pre-christian  and  non-christian  literature  to 
find  a  few  gleams  of  such  quick  and  sure  intuition, 
as  give  every  paragraph  of  Jesus*  teaching  real 
worth.  Again,  we  wonder  at  his  sense  of  propor- 
tion and  relative  value,  which  leaves  the  impres- 


JESUS'  POSITIVE  TEACHING  II3 

sion  of  unequalled  sanity  and  penetration.  This 
is  all  the  more  remarkable  since  the  legalistic 
system  of  his  day  had  lost  all  sense  of  balance, 
and  was  as  badly  awry  and  out  of  plumb  as  any 
system  intelligent  men  have  ever  known.  But  with 
infalhble  accuracy,  Jesus  put  first  things  first,  and 
never  failed  to  get  at  the  inner  principle,  at  the  very 
root  of  the  problem.  The  best  illustrations  of  this 
are  his  discovery  of  active  love  as  the  guiding  prin- 
ciple of  a  true  Hfe,  and  his  indissoluble  combination 
of  rehgion  and  ethics,  while  reserving  to  religion 
a  certain  primacy,  in  his  famous  summing  up  of 
duty  as  love  to  God  and  love  to  man.  This 
fine  balance  of  duties  to  God  and  man  is  the 
profoundest  and  most  valuable  contribution  to 
ethics  ever  made.  Add  to  this,  as  a  third  element, 
a  deep  seriousness  and  unexampled  moral  earnest- 
ness, and  we  shall  understand  something  of  the 
impression  of  power,  which  his  words  give  to 
every  generation,  a  spirit  and  life  which  takes 
them  out  of  the  realm  of  the  speculative  and 
theoretical,  and  makes  them  a  positive  practical 
force  in  the  world  with  a  pecuHar  penetrative 
quality.  His  teaching  is  its  own  best  praise. 
Its  effect  is  the  self-evidencing  proof  of  its  unique 


114  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

character.  Lastly,  he  was  conscious  of  a  sort  of 
final  authority.  The  tone  of  certainty  rings  in 
every  utterance.  God  had  sent  him.  A  life 
built  on  his  sa)dngs  is  built  on  rock.  The  Judg- 
ment Day  itself  will  not  budge  it  an  inch.  If 
John  the  Baptist  is  the  greatest  of  the  prophets, 
he  is  more. 

When  we  turn  to  examine  Jesus'  way  of  teach- 
ing, we  see  immediately  that  he  never  thought  of 
constructing  an  ethical  or  theological  system. 
He  was  the  very  reverse  of  methodical.  Rather 
he  was  occasional,  fragmentary,  practical.  He 
seized  every  opportunity  for  inculcating  his  truth. 
He  used  the  language  of  the  common  man  and 
his  thought  moved  along  popular  lines.  He 
understood  the  value  of  the  short  pithy  style,  of 
illustration,  of  the  story.  His  matchless  parables 
reveal  his  delicate  appreciation  of  the  hidden 
harmonies  of  nature  with  the  deeper  things  of 
the  kingdom  and  of  the  human  heart,  his  wonder- 
fully accurate  observation  of  common  life  from 
every  side,  and  his  exquisite  sympathy  with  men, 
birds,  fields,  sea  and  sky.  He  used  the  acted 
parable  with  equal  power,  as  when  he  washed 
the  disciples'  feet  for  a  lesson  on  loving  service, 


JESUS'  POSITIVE  TEACHING  11$ 

presented  the  deepest  things  of  his  religion  under 
the  symbolism  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  or  withered 
the  fig  tree  by  the  wayside.  Along  with  the 
striking  and  beautiful  parabolic  form,  he  was  the 
master  of  spiritual  apothegms.  They  stick  in 
the  mind  like  burs  in  the  clothing,  and  he  meant 
they  should.  The  world  will  never  forget  the 
Golden  Rule,  his  summons  to  supplication,  "Ask 
and  ye  shall  receive,"  and  his  high  ideal,  "Be 
ye  perfect  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect;" 
while  the  Lord's  Prayer  seems  ideal  in  brevity, 
simplicity,  comprehensiveness,  spirituality  and 
uplifting  power.  He  is  often  almost  poetic,  in- 
dulges in  hyperbole,  sometimes  argues  by  the 
extreme  case,  and  is  never  careful  to  define  with 
exactness.  There  is  nothing  scholastic  about 
him,  he  is  never  fanciful  or  flat  like  the  scribes, 
but  there  is  in  him  an  elemental  freshness,  sanity 
and  understanding  which  give  his  words  a  per- 
petual interest  and  charm.  The  reason  is  not 
far  to  seek.  What  he  taught  had  not  been  learned 
from  books,  nor  from  other  men,  but  was  the 
expression  of  a  constant  inner  experience  of 
unique  fellowship  with  his  Father,  and  of  a  soul 
strong  in  love  and  purity.     His  heart  spoke  to 


Il6  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

men's  hearts  with  a  directness,  lucidity  and  sim- 
plicity absolutely  unrivalled  in  the  history  of  the 
world.  And  it  went  home  and  it  goes  home, 
because  in  it  men  seem  to  hear  the  voice  of  all 
that  is  purest  and  best.  Consequently,  if  we 
would  correctly  represent  Jesus,  we  cannot 
analyze  his  teaching  after  the  style  of  modern 
systematic  ethics  or  traditional  theology,  but 
will  attempt  to  describe  it  as  it  lay  in  his  own 
mind,  so  far  as  our  fragmentary  sources  will  allow. 

The  leading  and  unifying  idea  in  Jesus'  teach- 
ing is  the  Kingdom  of  God,  a  conception  which  he 
seized  upon  as  the  best  expression  of  his  experi- 
ence and  the  object  of  his  mission,  and  which  he 
more  or  less  transformed.  As  the  phrase  only 
imperfectly  corresponded  with  his  deepest  thought, 
however,  he  said  many  things,  which  he  doubt- 
less did  not  consciously  relate  to  it.  Yet,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  nearly  all  his  teaching  may  be  so 
related  without  violence. 

This  phrase  contains  the  two  leading  religious 
ideas  of  Jesus,  and  the  more  important  of  the 
two  in  his  mind  was  God.  The  earliest,  deepest 
and  most  abiding  element  in  Jesus'  experience 
was  his  fellowship  with  God  (cf.  p.  47ff.).     Out 


JESUS'  POSITIVE  TEACHING  II7 

of  this  sprang  the  thought  of  his  mission,  and  in 
it  securely  rested  his  whole  life.  Jesus'  God  was 
the  God  of  the  Old  Testament,  but  he  called 
this  God  Father.  To  be  sure,  this  word  is  ap- 
plied to  God  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  in  his 
relation  to  Israel,  to  the  theocratic  king  and 
classes  of  individuals,  but  Jesus,  with  his  wonder- 
ful sense  of  proportion,  exalted  this  title  to  the 
first  place,  individualized  it,  and  gave  it  a  warmer, 
richer,  more  intimate  meaning.  As  Father,  God 
loves,  rules  and  cares  for  his  children;  and  they 
on  their  part  owe  him,  as  their  Father,  rever- 
ence, supreme  love,  obedience  and  trust.  God  is 
not  far  off,  despite  what  the  legalistic  system 
tended  to  teach  men,  but  near  at  hand,  and  in- 
tensely interested  in  their  salvation  and  all  their 
highest  good.  This  teaching  of  the  Fatherliness 
of  God  is  Jesus'  greatest  service  in  the  revelation 
of  God  to  man.  Yet,  as  the  very  phrase  "king- 
dom of  God"  shows,  the  Father  was  in  Jesus' 
thought  the  King,^  the  Moral  Governor  of  the 

^  Sometimes  Jesus  makes  God  king  in  the  kingdom,  and  some- 
times represents  himself  as  king.  But  there  is  no  diflGiculty  here. 
Just  as  the  Davidic  king  was  merely  God's  deputy  in  a  state, 
which  was  essentially  a  theocracy,  so  Jesus  is  God's  Messiah, 
and  (deputy)  king  in  the  Messianic  kingdom. 


Il8  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

world,  to  whom  men  are  responsible  and  to  whom 
they  must  give  accomit.  Jesus  never  imagined 
that  the  ideas  Father  and  King  could  ever  be 
thought  inconsistent  with  each  other.  To  him, 
God  was  the  Father-King.  God,  he  taught,  was 
holy,  supremely  good,  perfect  in  every  moral 
excellence,  the  basis,  norm,  and  end  of  moral 
character,  the  absolute  guarantor  of  the  victory 
of  the  kingdom.  On  this  account,  Jesus  made 
no  sharp  distinction  between  religion  and  morals. 
He  knew  no  religion  which  did  not  go  out  in 
active  love  to  man,  which  was  not  instinct  with 
the  impulse  of  duty  to  humanity.  He  knew  no 
morals,  which  were  not  founded  in  the  idea  of 
God,  and  which  did  not  continually  draw  motive 
and  inspiration  from  him. 

The  Kingdom  of  God  has  already  been  ex- 
plained (cf.  p.  72f.).  It  is  first  of  all  individual. 
That  man  has  entered  into  the  kingdom  in  whose 
willing  and  happy  heart  God  has  begun  his  blessed 
reign,  and  this  is  evidenced  by  the  loving  obe- 
dience of  the  man  to  God.  "To  be  in  the  kingdom 
is  to  be  with  God,"  to  repeat  in  kind,  if  not  in 
degree,  the  experience  of  Jesus.  Yet  the  future 
will  be   still  more  glorious   and   blessed.     The 


JESUS'  POSITIVE  TEACHING  II9 

kingdom  has  come,  but  is  still  to  come,  and  the 
best  is  yet  to  be.  It  inevitably  becomes  social. 
These  children  of  the  kingdom  will  constitute  a 
new  and  heavenly  society  on  this  earth,  a  society 
in  which  God  will  reign  and  which  will  do  his 
will  gladly  and  perfectly. 

This  thought  of  the  kingdom  is  one  of  the 
most  important  ever  given  to  men.  History  is 
not  a  monotonous  round  of  ever  returning  cycles. 
It  is  coming  out  somewhere.  The  world  is  tend- 
ing towards  an  ideal  perfection,  and  that  ideal 
gives  it  purpose  and  unity.  God  is  not  outside 
society,  detached,  vague  and  shadowy,  but  work- 
ing in  it  and  through  it,  actively  engaged  in  its 
development  towards  this  most  blessed  consum- 
mation of  a  glad  and  imiversal  obedience  and 
fellowship.  So  the  world  is  to  find  its  final  unity 
and  final  blessedness  in  God.  Nothing  gives  the 
Christian  such  patience,  strength  and  joy  as  this 
thought. 

This  kingdom,  Jesus  taught,  was  of  priceless 
worth  to  the  individual  and  to  society.  It  is  a 
feast  of  blessings.  In  it  he  who  sorrows  over  sin 
shall  receive  the  peace  and  comfort  of  the  divine 
mercy.    He  who  hungers  and  thirsts  after  right- 


I20  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

eousness  shall  have  the  solid  satisfaction  of  real 
moral  attainment.  The  cleansed  in  heart  shall 
have  the  vision  of  God,  and  shall  know  the  deep 
joy  of  the  divine  sonship.  Through  the  power 
of  gentleness,  God  makes  them  the  heirs  of  the 
world.  This  is  life  and  life  more  abundant.  No 
sacrifice  is  too  great  to  gain  it. 

Jesus  laid  stress  on  the  seriousness  of  the  issue 
when  the  kingdom  was  offered  men  and  they 
were  invited  to  enter  it.  There  were  only  two 
ways  then,  one  led  to  life  and  one  to  death. 
That  ojffer  makes  the  supreme  demand  on  men. 
To  reject  it  even  to  gain  the  whole  world  is  the 
most  dreadful  folly,  for  it  means  the  rejection  of 
the  highest  good — the  throwing  away  of  life 
itself.  Better  cut  off  the  right  hand  or  pluck  out 
the  right  eye,  than  suffer  such  a  final  and  irre- 
mediable loss.  No  more  solemn  words  were  ever 
spoken  than  those  used  by  Jesus  to  emphasize 
and  illustrate  the  gravity  of  this  choice  both  for 
the  individual  and  the  nation.  This  note  of  the 
seriousness  of  life  and  its  issues  pervades  the 
teaching  of  Jesus,  and  magnifies  the  value  of 
the  kingdom. 

Jesus  came  not  only  to  teach  men  about  the 


JESUS'  POSITIVE  TEACHING  121 

kingdom,  but  to  induce  them  to  come  into  it. 
In  doing  so  he  naturally  laid  down  the  conditions 
of  entrance.  These  are  variously  stated  and 
illustrated,  but  in  each  case  the  first  step  is 
repentance,  by  which  Jesus  meant  a  change  of 
mind  and  heart  and  will  towards  sin  and  God. 
Looked  at  from  the  divine  side,  it  is  a  new  birth, 
the  beginning  of  a  God-given,  new,  and  higher  life. 

This  repentance  unto  life  means  definitely 
quitting  the  old  life  of  sin  and  selfishness  and 
beginning  to  do  the  will  of  God,  not  from  neces- 
sity or  as  a  burden,  or  with  legalistic  particu- 
larism, but  gladly  and  freely,  with  a  real  appetite 
for  righteousness  and  service.  Jesus'  insistence 
on  righteousness  can  hardly  be  overstated.  It 
is  the  theme  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  and 
the  lesson  of  his  most  public  and  striking  act, 
the  cleansing  of  the  temple.  Jesus  knew  nothing 
of  any  incongruity  between  love  and  righteous- 
ness. Love  to  him  was  a  part  of  righteousness, 
and  righteousness  the  indispensable  quality  of 
love.    In  his  mind,  justice  underlies  benevolence. 

This  new  life  is  the  life  of  faith.  Jesus  saw  the 
budding  of  faith  in  a  consciousness  of  spiritual 
need,    humility    and    the    childlike    qualities    of 


122  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

teachableness  and  open-mindedness.  Its  flower 
was  trust  in  God's  willingness  to  pardon  and  to 
bless,  and  its  fruit  was  a  complete  surrender,  a 
renunciation  of  self  and  all  that  stands  in  the 
way  of  the  new  life,  a  supreme  devotion  to  Jesus 
and  a  readiness  to  sacrifice  everything,  even  life 
itself,  in  following  him  and  doing  God's  will. 
Of  the  completeness  of  this  surrender  in  faith 
Jesus  could  hardly  speak  more  strongly  than  he 
does. 

This  new  life  is  also  a  life  of  love  to  God  and 
man,  and  on  this  account  must  begin  with  the 
forgiveness  of  all  who  have  done  us  wrong. 
Jesus  is  inflexible  with  reference  to  this  initial 
test.  Gentleness,  mercy  and  peace  are  equally 
indispensable.  Love  is  not  merely  benevolence, 
good  will,  but  it  is  active  beneficence,  a  real  doing 
of  good  to  all  those  about  us.  The  children  of 
the  kingdom  will,  however,  have  a  special  affec- 
tion for  all  who  follow  Jesus  and  show  a  special 
kindness  towards  them,  just  because  they  are 
his  and  are  therefore  brethren  in  an  especial  sense. 

The  condition  of  entrance  into  the  kingdom 
is,  then,  repentance,  a  change  from  a  life  of  self- 
ishness and  sin  to  a  life  of  righteousness,  faith 


JESUS'  POSITIVE  TEACHING  12$ 

and  love  in  the  sense  in  which  those  words  are 
used  above. 

Now  this  new  life  is  salvation.  He  who  enters 
upon  it  and  continues  in  it  is  saved,  now  and 
for  all  eternity.  He  is  saved  from  irreverence, 
unbelief,  aimlessness,  selfishness,  sensuality,  and 
all  their  brood  of  vipers.  He  is  saved  to  fellow- 
ship with  God  and  Jesus  and  all  good  men,  to 
purity,  freedom,  peace,  joy  and  love.  He  is 
given  an  unshakable  rock  of  confidence  and  the 
noblest  of  all  purposes.  He  receives  a  new  spir- 
itual and  moral  power,  and  triumphs  in  the  hope 
of  ultimate  moral  victory,  not  only  for  himself 
but  for  the  race.  If  he  fall,  he  shall  not  be 
utterly  cast  down,  for  the  Lord  shall  make  him 
to  stand.  The  God  who  has  bestowed  upon  him 
this  wealth  of  blessing  will  not  forsake  his  mercy 
towards  him  at  any  possible  judgment  day.  Such 
is  the  teaching  of  Jesus. 

Let  us  now  follow  Jesus  as  he  more  particularly 
describes  the  life  of  the  children  of  the  kingdom. 
His  primary  insistence  here  is  not  on  outward 
duties  but  on  the  inner  life.  It  is  heart  religion 
which  he  demands.  The  kingdom  of  God  is  first 
of  all  a  spiritual  kingdom  within  men.     Jesus 


124  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

begins  at  the  center  and  works  from  within  out- 
wards. He  cleanses  the  life  at  its  fountain  head. 
With  unerring  insight,  he  goes  to  the  very  root 
of  the  matter.  He  searches  out  the  hidden  springs 
of  action  in  the  thoughts,  motives  and  desires  of 
men,  and  judges  the  outer  conduct  by  the  inner 
intent.  All  sin  and  all  blessedness  proceed  out  of 
the  heart.  It  is  the  cleansed  in  heart  who  shall 
see  God.  This  innerness  is  the  unique  quality  in 
the  righteousness  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

So  Jesus  puts  truth  first.  He  demands  that  a 
man  shall  be  inherently  honest  with  himself,  and 
therefore,  with  others.  There  is  nothing  which 
he  hates  so  much  as  a  basic  falseness,  an  uncon- 
scious but  real  hypocrisy.  This  subtle  poison 
rots  a  man  at  the  core. 

Such  fundamental  honesty  assures  moral  in- 
tegrity. The  man  is  no  longer  torn  with  conflict- 
ing emotions,  conscience  pulling  one  way  and  the 
desires  the  other.  The  purified  will  is  the  cap- 
tain of  the  ship  and  directs  it  right  on  in  spite 
of  storms.  So  life  gets  a  unity  in  the  one  su- 
preme purpose  of  the  loving  heart  to  do  God^s 
will  and  finds  a  simplicity  and  peace  which  can- 
not be  had  in  any  other  way. 


JESUS*  POSITIVE  TEACHING  1 25 

From  this  results  Jesus'  demand  for  spiritual 
independence,  that  men  shall  judge  and  choose 
in  the  spiritual  realm  for  themselves,  that  they 
shall  see  things  in  the  clear  light  of  truth  simply 
and  as  a  whole,  and  that  they  shall  act  on  the 
light  the}^  may  gain.  This  is  the  root  of  that 
spiritual  freedom  which  refuses  to  be  bound  by 
external  authority,  and  is  the  mainspring  of  intel- 
lectual no  less  than  religious  progress. 

It  is  no  wonder  then  that  Jesus,  who  sees  in 
the  human  heart  the  seat  of  morals  and  religion, 
should  have  exalted  as  no  one  before  him  the 
value  of  a  man.  Man,  in  his  view,  is  incom- 
parably superior  to  inorganic  nature  and  animals. 
Human  rights  always  take  precedence  of  property 
rights.  He  thought  men  well  worth  dying  for. 
One  human  soul  is  worth  more  than  a  whole 
world  of  things.  This  is  the  source  of  the  Chris- 
tian ideas  of  reverence  for  personality,  of  democ- 
racy, of  the  equality  of  the  sexes,  the  rights  of 
children,  the  Christian  home,  and  the  demand 
for  a  new  social  order. 

The  life  of  the  children  of  the  kingdom,  while 
fundamentally  a  life  of  honesty  and  independence 
in  the  spirit,  is  also  the  life  of  love.     God  loves 


126  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

his  children,  and  they  love  him,  their  brethren  in 
the  kingdom,  and  all  men,  even  enemies.  God 
loves  his  children  more  than  any  earthly  father 
can.  He  understands  them,  will  care  for  them 
and  protect  them,  will  hear  their  cry,  and  stands 
ever  ready  to  help  them.  Their  welcome  home 
when  they  come  back  to  him  as  sinners  shows 
what  sort  of  a  Father  he  is.  Nor  will  he  ever 
allow  those  who  have  trusted  his  love  to  perish. 
On  this  assurance,  Jesus  bases  his  teaching  of 
immortality  (Mark  12:  26f.).  Yet  this  is  no  easy- 
going, indulgent  love,  indifferent  to  principle  and 
the  highest  good  of  the  children,  but  "the  firm 
and  steadfast  administration  of  a  holy  household," 
where  the  Father  is  supreme  and  his  spirit  is  the 
accepted  law. 

Jesus*  heart  glowed  with  God's  love  for  his  own. 
He  is  the  Good  Shepherd,  who  seeks  and  saves 
the  lost  even  at  the  cost  of  his  life.  He  identi- 
fies himself  with  his  disciples  most  intimately. 
Those  who  reject  them  reject  him,  and  those  who 
do  them  the  slightest  kindness  because  they  are 
his,  do  it  to  him.  With  jealous  love  he  denounces 
his  direst  woes  upon  him  who  shall  cause  one  of 
the  least  of  them  to  fall  into  sin.    He  promises 


JESUS'  POSITIVE  TEACHING  127 

his  continual  presence  with  them.  He  will  never 
fail  them. 

God's  children  also  will  love.  The  first  com- 
mandment and  the  second,  too,  is,  "Thou  shalt 
love."  It  is  the  law  of  the  kingdom.  They  love 
God.  This  is  the  foundation  of  everything  in  the 
spiritual  realm,  underlies  all  thought,  feeling  and 
action.  It  is  the  first  instinct  of  God's  child, 
and  carries  with  it  trust,  obedience  and  reverence. 

They  love  Jesus  in  whom  they  see  the  love  of 
God.  They  follow  and  obey  him  at  any  cost  of 
sacrifice  or  suffering.  They  stand  by  him,  when 
all  the  world  deserts  him.  They  bring  their 
precious  ointment  and  pour  it  on  his  feet,  and  on 
his  head,  and  he  thinks  that  they  do  well.  They 
lay  down  their  lives  for  him  and  he  thinks  it 
fitting  that  they  should.  Again  and  again  Jesus 
demands  a  love  that  shall  be  faithful  unto  death. 

They  love  their  brethren  in  the  kingdom, 
brethren  indeed,  joined  by  closer  ties  than  those 
of  the  flesh,  having  the  same  experience  of  God's 
grace  and  Jesus'  love,  the  same  inspiring  task, 
the  same  blessed  hope.  They  love  all  men.  Love 
of  neighbor  is  the  second  great  commandment. 
The   Golden   Rule,   while   essentially  a   rule  of 


128  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

justice,  is  its  practical  principle.  The  neighbor 
is  the  man  who  needs  us,  whether  friend,  stranger, 
alien  or  enemy.  Yes,  Jesus  requires  his  followers 
to  love  even  enemies,  who  are  actually  striving 
to  ruin  and  kill  them.  This  love,  however,  is 
no  sentimental  feeling  (we  cannot  enjoy  our  ene- 
mies), but  an  active  doing  of  good.  The  chil- 
dren of  the  kingdom  will  be  gentle,  kindly  in 
judgment,  forgiving,  compassionate,  peacemakers, 
reverent  in  feeling  towards  personality,  and  will 
ever  be  giving  to  the  very  limits  of  gener- 
osity. 

Indeed,  the  condition  of  rank  in  the  kingdom  is 
not  wealth,  intellectual  ability,  power,  or  even 
length  or  dilficulty  of  service,  but  a  loving  heart 
which  ministers  in  a  lowly  spirit  to  the  good  of 
men.  No  one  thing  in  this  connection  is  more 
emphasized  than  this,  and  here  Jesus  presents 
himself  as  the  great  example. 

The  life  in  the  kingdom  is  presented  from  other 
points  of  view,  all  more  or  less  related  to  those 
already  mentioned.  It  is  a  life  of  sexual  purity; 
Jesus  goes  out  of  his  way  to  reiterate  this.  It 
is  a  life  of  rest  to  the  soul,  of  real  and  abiding 
peace,  of  deep  and  lasting  joy.     It  is  a  life  of 


JESUS'  POSITIVE  TEACHING  1 29 

freedom  from  care  and  anxiety;  of  faith  in  the 
ultimate  triumph  of  righteousness  and  love,  of 
the  cause  of  Christ  and  God;  of  patience  and 
courage  in  the  spiritual  conflict. 

Its  external  religious  duties  are  very  few  and 
simple.  Towards  God,  prayer  seems  to  be  the 
only  one  urged  on  the  disciples.  Towards  men, 
all  duties  may  be  summed  up  in  loving  service 
in  the  spirit  of  himaihty,  and  yet  the  greatest 
service  we  can  render  is  often  made  prominent, 
i.  e.,  preaching,  making  known  and  communicat- 
ing to  others  the  unspeakable  gift  of  Hfe  which 
we  have  received  in  our  entrance  into  the  king- 
dom. 

Yet  we  do  not  correctly  represent  Jesus  unless 
we  remember  his  insistence  on  doing  God's  will. 
The  right  state  of  heart  is  only  the  necessary 
preliminary  to  this.  The  Hfe  of  the  disciples  of 
Jesus  is  to  be  both  active  and  contemplative, 
but  the  emphasis  is  on  action.  With  Jesus,  too, 
the  will  is  king.  He  insists  on  choosing  rather 
than  drifting,  on  doing  rather  than  professing. 
Indeed  he  anticipates  our  modern  psychology, 
and  declares  that  men  will  learn  God's  will  by 
doing  it,  will  come  to  certainty  and  depth  of  ex- 


130  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

perience  by  walking  in  the  path  of  loving  obedi- 
ence. Jesus  never  thought  of  offering  a  substi- 
tute for  real  objective  righteousness. 

The  attitude  of  the  children  of  the  kingdom 
towards  life  and  society  needs  more  than  a  pass- 
ing word.  As  we  have  said,  Jesus'  primary  con- 
cern was  with  the  inner  nature  of  the  individual 
man.  He  sought  to  make  men  reverent,  pure, 
honest,  just  and  loving  by  bringing  them  into  a 
new  relation  to  (jod.  His  first  care  was  character. 
But  just  as  soon  as  men  were  renewed  in  the 
spirit  of  their  minds,  their  relation  to  life  and 
men  around  them  was  necessarily  changed.  Their 
life  in  the  family,  in  business,  in  the  state,  would 
be  different  from  what  it  was  before.  There 
would  be  new  motives,  new  ideals,  new  view- 
points, new  energies.  Jesus'  insistence  on  active 
love,  not  merely  to  brethren  within  the  kingdom, 
but  to  strangers,  Samaritans  and  even  enemies, 
shows  his  general  attitude.  He  was  generally 
content,  however,  with  inculcating  a  spirit.  Only 
rarely  did  he  deal  with  particular  practical  prob- 
lems, yet  these  rare  instances  prove  that  he  recog- 
nized and  expected  that  the  principles  he  had 
taught  would  have  a  direct  and  decisive  influence 


JESUS'   POSITIVE  TEACHING  I3I 

on  social  relations.  He  spoke  only  once  about 
the  State  (Mark  12:  17).  It  was  a  conservative 
word,  when  the  radical  word  was  anticipated  by 
his  foes,  and  yet  it  had  in  it  the  seeds  of  some  of 
the  finest  modern  developments  in  government.  He 
spoke  repeatedly  and  emphatically  about  marriage 
and  divorce,  upholding  the  highest  ideals  with  ref- 
erence to  them  in  a  lax  age.  His  most  frequent  and 
most  scathing  social  utterances  were,  however,  re- 
served for  the  sin  of  covetousness.  So  strong  are  his 
words  against  riches  that  he  has  been  claimed  by 
modern  agitators  as  their  rightful  leader  in  their 
war  against  property,  and  has  been  weakly  de- 
fended by  some  social  conservatives  as  giving  us 
a  temporary  code  of  morals,  fitted  only  for  the 
brief  interval  which  he  thought  would  elapse 
before  the  end  of  the  world.  But  Jesus  never 
thought  of  an  end  of  the  world  in  any  such  sense.  ^ 
The  kingdom  of  glory  which  he  would  bring  in 
at  his  coming  would  be  a  kingdom  on  this  earth, 
a  new  society  of  men  and  women,  in  all  essential 
features  like  the  kingdom  he  was  setting  up  dur- 
ing his  earthly  career,  but  purified  and  relieved 

*  The  words  "  end  of  the  world  "  should  always  be  translated 
"  consummation  of  the  age." 


132  THE  MAN   OF   NAZARETH 

of  the  incubus  of  evil.  Society  would  not  "end 
in  a  crash,"  as  some  say  that  he  taught,  but 
would  go  on  at  a  higher  level. 

Moreover,  both  social  radicals  and  conserva- 
tives interpret  Jesus'  words  with  too  bald  a 
literalism  and  without  regard  to  his  fundamental 
attitude  and  purpose.  In  his  care  for  the  spiritual 
development  of  men,  he  saw  that  their  only 
salvation  was  in  putting  God  absolutely  first. 
Men  could  not  be  bond-servants  of  both  God  and 
mammon,  for  their  demands  were  often  opposite, 
and  if  they  tried  to  worship  both,  money  was 
sure  to  win  them  in  the  end.  The  opinion  which 
puts  material  things, — food,  clothes,  money,  com- 
forts,— above  God,  the  kingdom,  character,  so- 
ciety, love,  and  justice,  Jesus  set  out  to  reverse. 
He  found  wealth,  and  the  intense  desire  for  it, 
his  greatest  foe  in  this  endeavor.  It  was  almost 
impossible  to  make  rich  men  see  what  he  wanted, 
or  to  enter  into  the  new  Hfe  that  he  opened  before 
them.  In  some  desperate  instances,  he  told  them 
that  their  only  salvation  was  in  giving  it  all  away 
and  starting  afresh  and  free  in  the  new  path. 
Yet  he  did  not  say  this  to  all,  nor  make  it  a 
imiversal  demand.    He  had  rich  men  and  women 


JESUS'  POSITIVE  TEACHING  I33 

among  his  disciples,  and  always  conceded  the 
need  of  bread  and  clothes  and  money.  Lately 
we  have  been  told  that  Jesus  preached  a  renun- 
ciation of  the  world  of  such  a  character  that  to 
follow  him  would  break  up  society.  But  this 
also  is  untrue.  He  did  demand  a  renunciation 
of  self  (Mark  8:  34),  of  the  selfish  life,  of  all  that 
is  sinful  and  wrong.  And  this  renunciation  of 
self  and  sin  is  revolutionary  in  its  influence  on 
the  world.  Jesus  said  it  would  bring  in  a  new 
age.  It  has  already  done  so,  and  will  work  in- 
creasingly from  the  present  day  on.  But  Jesus 
did  not  bid  men  renounce  the  good  in  the  world. 
He  loved  nature,  he  loved  his  country,  he  did  not 
withdraw  his  disciples  from  life  but  bade  them 
fight  the  good  fight  in  life's  swirling  currents,  he 
recognized  the  State,  he  refounded  the  home,  he 
blessed  marriage  and  children,  he  enjoyed  all  of 
life's  innocent  pleasures,  he  made  life  richer, 
fuller  and  nobler.  So  far  as  world-renunciation 
and  world-aflirmation  ^  are  concerned,  he  held 
that  even  balance  of  sanity,  which  did  not  fear 

^  World-afl5rmation  is  a  somewhat  recent  technical  word,  in- 
vented as  an  opposite  of  world-renunciation.  It  expresses  the 
attitude  of  the  man  who  thinks  this  a  very  good  world  and  is 
not  disposed  to  deny  himself  any  of  its  pleasures. 


134  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

to  bring  in  the  radical  change,  and  yet  appre- 
ciated and  conserved  all  that  was  good  in  the  exist- 
ing order.  When  he  says  that  his  kingdom  is 
not  of  this  world,  he  refers  to  its  heavenly  origin 
and  its  spiritual  (non-political)  character.  He 
never  denies,  however,  that  it  is  his  purpose 
to  build  a  new  world  in  the  midst  of  the  old  one, 
a  new  world  into  which  the  old  must  come  or  be 
doomed. 

But  what  was  the  relation  of  Jesus  to  the  King- 
dom of  God?  ^  The  answer  is  full  and  plain  and 
makes  up  a  very  considerable  part  of  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus.  To  be  sure,  as  we  have  pointed 
out,  he  at  first  and  always  spoke  more  of  the 
spiritual  kingdom,  but  afterwards  frequentiy  of 
the  spiritual  king.  His  relation  with  God  was 
intimate  and  basic.  God  was  his  Father,  had 
sent  him,  given  him  an  experience  of  blessing, 
had  filled  him  with  the  Spirit  and  with  power, 
had  endued  him  with  all  the  resources  of  spiritual 
knowledge  and  energy  necessary  to  his  great  work 
of  salvation,  and  had  guaranteed  its  ultimate 
success.     No   less  a  term   than   Messiah   could 

1  Jesus'  teaching  on  the  Method  and  Progress  of  the  Kingdom 
is  more  appropriately  treated  in  the  next  chapter. 


JESUS'  POSITIVE  TEACHING  I35 

possibly  describe  him  and  that  was  inadequate. 
So  he  was  the  Son  of  Man,  the  Son  of  God,  the 
Savior  of  Men,  the  King  in  the  Kingdom,  and 
the  Final  Judge.  Though  his  mission,  he  finally 
saw,  could  be  accomplished  only  through  his 
death,  he  was  certain  that  he  would  survive  death, 
and  in  a  future  and  glorious  consummation  finally 
and  perfectly  set  up  the  kingdom,  and  reign  in  it 
as  king. 

Indeed  this  kingdom  was  only  God's  reign  in 
the  humble  and  loving  heart,  with  all  its  blessed 
social  consequences.  To  enter  it  was  but  to  enter 
into  the  delightful  experience  of  God,  which  Jesus 
enjoyed.  So  the  kingdom  came  with  him,  and 
could  increase  and  strengthen  only  as  the  enjoy- 
ment of  his  experience  was  shared  by  an  ever 
increasing  multitude.  This  new  Hfe,  shared  with 
Jesus,  found  its  source  of  supply  in  Jesus  himself, 
in  communion  with  him,  and  through  him  with 
God.  The  Lord's  Supper  can  mean  nothing  less 
than  that  the  disciple  is  to  nourish  his  spiritual 
life  by  a  constant  appropriation  of  the  spirit, 
purpose  and  self-sacrificing  love  of  Jesus. 

Therefore  salvation  is  in  Jesus.  To  love  him, 
to  follow  him,  to  obey  him,  to  cleave  to  him,  to 


136  THE  MAN   OF   NAZARETH 

get  his  experience  and  to  share  his  purpose  is 
life.  He  is  the  way  to  God.  To  reject  him  is  to 
choose  spiritual  death.  He  is  the  touchstone  of 
destiny. 


CHAPTER  VII 

JESUS'  WORK  AND  HIS  VIEW  OF  ITS  FUTURE 

Jesus  was  more  than  a  teacher,  he  was  a 
founder.  He  must  rank  with  the  great  empire 
builders;  but  he  was  greater  than  they,  for  he 
founded  a  spiritual  empire  by  spiritual  means, 
an  empire  which  he  still  dominates  and  guides, 
and  which  still  increases,  centuries  after  their 
temporary  structures  based  on  force  have  dropped 
to  pieces.  This  is  directly  in  line  with  one  of 
Jesus'  favorite  passages,  Dan.  7:  13,  14.  He 
founded  this  empire  or  kingdom,  as  he  called  it, 
by  giving  men  a  new  spiritual  hfe,  fostering  that 
life,  and  finally  sending  them  out  to  build  the 
kingdom  by  communicating  their  new  life  to 
others.  Despite  all  that  may  be  said  for  Peter, 
John  and  Paul,  in  a  real  sense  Jesus  foimded  it 
alone. 

Now  let  us  look  at  this  great  work  of  Jesus, 
as  presented  to  us  in  the  gospels  and  especially 
as  viewed  by  Jesus  himself. 

137 


138  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

First  of  all,  he  believed  that  he  was  founding 
God^s  kingdom.  God  was  behind  him  in  this  work. 
It  was  his  Father's  business,  God  had  sent  him. 
The  Spirit  was  upon  him,  had  anointed  him, 
and  worked  in  and  through  him.  All  the  future 
lay  in  his  Father's  hands,  and  he  was  content 
that  it  should  be  so. 

The  character  of  the  work  is  plain.  It  was 
an  aggressive  ministry.  He  sought  men.  He 
did  not  wait  for  men  to  come  to  him.  He  went 
after  them.  So  it  was  an  itinerant  ministry. 
Ceaselessly  he  pursued  his  preaching  tours,  from 
village  to  village,  from  city  to  city,  from  province 
to  province.  He  covered  all  the  major  divisions 
of  the  Jewish  fatherland,  Judea,  Galilee  and 
Perea,  and  preached  also  in  Samaria  and  Philip's 
tetrarchy.  He  strove  to  come  into  personal  con- 
tact with  just  as  many  people  as  possible.^  The 
white  harvest  was  ever  before  his  eyes  and  on 
his   heart.     He   prayed   for   helpers   and    urged 

^The  thoroughness  and  comprehensiveness  of  this  speaking 
campaign  has  rarely  been  equalled.  Where  did  Jesus  get  this 
aggressiveness?  It  was  peculiarly  foreign  to  the  circle  of  the 
Devout  from  which  he  sprang,  and  in  striking  contrast  to  the 
quiet  years  at  Nazareth.  Jesus  himself  ascribes  it  to  the  Spirit 
(Luke  4:  18).  It  clearly  testifies  to  his  early  certainty  and  def- 
initeness  with  reference  to  his  divine  call  and  mission. 


JESUS'  WORK  AND  VIEW  OF  ITS  FUTURE     I39 

others  to  pray  for  them.  No  difiSculties  or  weari- 
ness held  him  back.  Over  the  mountains  and 
through  the  wilderness  the  Shepherd  sought  his 
sheep.  He  sent  out  his  still  ill-prepared  disciples 
by  the  dozen  and  the  seventy  on  the  same  mis- 
sion. From  the  very  first  he  had  intended  to 
make  them  '^ fishers  of  men." 

It  was  a  preaching  ministry.  Preaching  was 
Jesus'  principal,  and,  except  healing  and  helping, 
his  only  method.  As  the  great  sower,  he  sowed 
the  divine  word  or  message  in  men's  hearts,  the 
message  of  the  kingdom  and  its  new  and  blessed 
life.  He  urged  men  to  enter  the  kingdom,  told 
them  how  to  do  so,  and  solemnly  warned  them  of 
the  consequences  of  refusal.  He  revealed  to 
them  the  father-heart  of  God,  bade  them  cast 
aside  the  weary  yoke  of  legalism,  and  find  rest 
in  his  experience  of  joy  and  his  new  service  of 
freedom. 

The  ultimate  object  of  this  ministry  was  salva- 
tion, to  save  men  and  society  from  falseness, 
selfishness  and  irreligion,  to  truth,  righteousness, 
love  and  God.  So  Jesus  sought  sinners,  promised 
them  on  the  condition  of  repentance  the  divine 
welcome,    a   Father's    forgiveness,   and    a    rein- 


I40  THE  MAN   OF   NAZARETH 

statement  in  his  favor,  constantly  alluring  them 
by  the  blessedness  of  the  life  of  the  kingdom 
here  and  hereafter.  On  the  other  hand,  he  plainly 
warned  them  that  it  meant  self-renunciation, 
danger,  poverty  and  possibly  death.  Yet  to  lose 
life  for  his  sake  was  to  find  it. 

It  was  a  ministry  of  love,  of  healing  and  help- 
fulness. Conscious  of  extraordinary  power  and 
compassionate  by  nature,  Jesus  could  not  but 
heal  the  sick  and  free  men  from  the  dreadful 
demon  possession.  He  rejoiced  in  this  power  to 
help,  he  even  saw  in  the  casting  out  of  demons 
the  evidence  of  his  victory  over  the  powers  of 
darkness  and  evil;  but  he  also  recognized  the 
danger  that  by  the  indiscriminate  and  continuous 
use  of  his  healing  ability,  he  might  give  a  wrong 
impression  of  his  real  object,  which  was  not  after  all 
the  curing  of  men's  bodies  but  the  setting  up  of  a 
spiritual  kingdom  of  spiritually  renovated  men.  So, 
towards  the  close  of  his  career,  we  find,  in  our  rec- 
ords at  least,  ever  fewer  miracles  of  physical  healing. 

His  ministry  had  a  truly  universal  character. 
Offering  a  purely  spiritual  good,  the  kingdom,  on 
purely  spiritual  conditions,  it  could  not  be  other- 
wise.   Jesus  was  one  of  the  Jewish  common  people 


JESUS'  WORK  AND  VIEW  OF  ITS  FUTURE     I4I 

and  he  loved  them.  From  the  very  first  he  had 
not  the  slightest  idea  of  allying  himself  with  the 
narrow  fraternity  of  separatist  Pharisees  or  gain- 
ing recognition  in  rabbinic  circles.  He  was 
frankly  a  common  man  and  remained  so.  His 
Savior-heart  went  out  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the 
house  of  Israel,  who,  he  saw,  had  no  shepherd. 
He  came  to  preach  glad  news  to  the  poor  and 
neglected.  He  felt  himself  drawn  to  the  "sin- 
ners," those  who  had  given  up  trying  to  keep  the 
law  and  its  thousand  refinements,  and  were 
looked  upon  as  unclean  by  the  Pharisees.  They 
were  not  bad  people  as  a  whole,  but  were  shut 
out  from  the  religion  of  the  day  by  the  religious 
leaders,  and  were  wandering  aimlessly  and  hope- 
lessly about.  Jesus  became  the  shepherd  of  these 
people,  presented  to  them  his  glad  news  that 
legalism  was  not  religion,  but  that  the  highest 
spiritual  good  could  be  had  by  the  sincere  and 
childlike,  who  would  begin  a  life  of  inner  honesty 
and  love  to  God  and  man.  And  they  received 
his  message.  Into  this  circle  he  drew  the  publi- 
cans, the  small  practical  politicians  of  the  day, 
who  had  turned  their  back  on  Pharisaic  exclusive- 
ness  and  Zealot  dreams  as  unremunerative,  and 


142  THE  MAN  OF   NAZARETH 

were  in  life  for  what  they  could  make  out  of  it. 
Many  of  them  received  him  gladly  and  one  of 
them  became  an  apostle. 

Nor  did  Jesus  confine  himself  to  these.  Con- 
trary to  the  law,  he  laid  a  sympathetic  hand  on 
a  poor  leper.  He  invited  the  harlots  to  come  into 
the  kingdom  and  they  came.  He  offered  a 
Samaritan  woman  the  water  of  life  and  had  an 
open  heart  towards  all  her  hated  race.  He  healed 
the  servant  of  the  Gentile  Roman  centurion, 
started  to  enter  his  house  without  a  thought  of 
defilement  (cf.  Acts  lo:  28,  11:  3),  and  praised 
his  faith  as  greater  than  any  he  had  yet  found 
in  Israel.  But  Jesus  was  no  class  Savior.  He 
sought  to  bring  even  the  Pharisees  into  the  joy 
of  the  kingdom.  He  pleaded  with  the  Jewish 
senator,  Nicodemus;  he  was  at  home  with  the 
well-to-do  family  at  Bethany.  Of  the  rich  young 
ruler  alone,  it  is  said  in  the  S3aioptists  that  "he 
loved  him."  ^  He  neither  courted  nor  shunned 
any  particular  set  of  men.  He  sought  nothing 
less  than  the  salvation  of  the  nation  as  such. 

^Mark  10:  21  (no  parallels).  John  11:  5  tells  us  that  Jesus 
loved  Martha  and  Mary  and  Lazarus,  also  prosperous  people; 
the  Fourth  Gospel  too  sometimes  speaks  of  "  the  disciple  whom 
Jesus  loved." 


JESUS*  WORK  AND  VIEW  OF  ITS  FUTURE     143 

This  conclusion  with  reference  to  the  univer- 
sality of  Jesus  is  seemingly  opposed  by  two  pas- 
sages, Matthew  10:  5  (no  parallel)  and  Matthew 
15:  24-26  (Mark  7:  37).  The  former,  however, 
which  bids  the  Twelve  avoid  Gentile  or  Samaritan 
territory  on  their  preaching  tour  is  fully  explained 
by  the  inadvisability  of  sending  men  still  full  of 
Jewish  prejudice  to  preach  to  outsiders.  The 
latter  passage,  in  which  Jesus  says  to  the  Syro- 
phoenician  that  he  is  sent  to  the  lost  sheep  of 
the  house  of  Israel,  is  more  difficult.  It  probably 
records  Jesus'  feeling  about  the  limitations  of 
his  own  mission,  which  at  that  period  especially 
he  could  not  transgress  without  serious  harm  to 
his  ultimate  purposes.  A  Gentile  mission  at  this 
crisis  in  his  career  would  not  only  have  rendered 
a  final  appeal  to  the  nation  impossible,  but 
would  probably  have  strained  the  disciples*  faith 
to  the  breaking  point.  But  here  too,  it  must  be 
noted,  the  wise  love  of  Jesus  found  a  way.  The 
woman's  faith,  Jesus  intimated,  showed  that 
she  belonged  to  the  spiritual  Israel. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  ministry  was  not  much 
more  than  half  over,  before  he  became  convinced 
that  his  violent  death  was  inevitable.    He  was 


144  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

sure  that  God  had  sent  him,  and  he  could  not 
stop.  Yet  his  continuance  in  the  work  constantly 
aggravated  the  bitter  and  murderous  opposition  of 
his  enemies.  There  could  be  only  one  result,  but, 
if  so,  death  was  a  part  of  his  mission,  a  part  of  the 
Father's  plan  for  him,  and,  consequently,  it  must 
be  necessary  to  the  accomplishment  of  his  great 
purpose  of  salvation.  So  he  was  certain  at  last 
that  he  could  not  save  the  world  by  preaching 
only.  He  must  add  to  preaching  the  laying  down 
of  his  life.  He  could  save  the  world  only  by  dying 
for  it.^  But  just  how  his  death  was  to  save  the 
world  Jesus  never  said. 

Only  two  passages  can  possibly  aid  us  at  this 
point.  In  Mark  lo:  45  and  parallel,  Jesus  speaks 
of  giving  his  life  a  ransom  for  many,  as  the  loftiest 
example  of  loving  service.  He  tells  us  that  his 
self-sacrificing  death  was  a  part  of  his  mission, 
and  that  through  it  God  would  save  ''many," 
but  the  how  and  why  remains  a  mystery.  Mark 
14:  24  and  parallels  at  first  look  more  hopeful. 
Jesus  is  speaking  of  the  wine  at  the  Last  Supper, 

*When  this  thought  began  to  dawn  on  Jesus,  he  found  Old 
Testament  passages  which  confirmed  it  to  his  mind,  especially 
Isaiah  53. 


JESUS'  WORK  AM)  VIEW  OF  ITS  FUTURE     145 

as  the  symbol  of  his  shed  blood.  "This  is  the 
blood  of  the  covenant,  which  is  poured  out  for 
many/'  and  Matthew  rightly  adds,  "for  the 
remission  or  forgiveness  of  sins."  Jesus  by  these 
words  clearly  indicates  that  he  regarded  his 
death  as  a  sacrifice.  All  sacrifices  are  more  or 
less  related  to  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  which  is 
one  of  God's  initial  steps  in  the  salvation  of  the 
sinner.  Still,  after  all,  the  whole  meaning  may  be 
nothing  more  than  that  through  the  offering  of 
his  life  as  a  sacrifice,  salvation  will  come  to  the 
world,  and  we  make  no  progress  in  trying  to 
answer  the  how  and  why. 

The  only  real  items  of  information  which  we 
get  from  this  passage  are  the  facts  that  Jesus 
looked  upon  his  death  as  a  covenant  sacrifice, 
which  actually  founded  the  new  community,  the 
new  Israel;  and  that  in  this  symbolism  he  ex- 
pressed the  power  of  blessing  which  h.e  expected 
from  his  death.  Just  as  they  drank  the  wine  of 
the  cup,  assimilated  and  made  it  a  part  of  them- 
selves, so  his  disciples  must  partake  of  and  ap- 
propriate his  spirit  which  does  not  refuse  the 
supreme  sacrifice  for  others'  good.  Only  thus 
can   they   nourish   their   own   spiritual   lives   or 


146  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

have  a  part  in  the  new  kingdom  of  self-giving 
love.  They  too  must  add  sacrifice  to  preaching. 
This  is  profoundly  significant.  It  founds  Chris- 
tianity not  on  a  teaching,  but  on  a  person  and  an 
act.^  That  person  and  act  must  live  again  in 
Jesus'  followers.  Possibly  we  begin  to  see  an 
answer  to  the  how  and  why,  but  not  as  clearly 
as  we  would  like.  Possibly  Jesus  could  not  pro- 
duce in  this  world  by  any  other  means  except 
his  self-sacrificing  death  that  new  type  of  charac- 
ter which  would  be  dead  to  all  the  claims  of  self- 
interest  and  self-gratification  and  would  gladly  de- 
vote and  lay  down  life  itself  for  other's  good.  And 
such  a  life  of  self-sacrifice  in  lowly  service  to  man 
and  loving  obedience  to  God  and  duty  is  salvation. 
Gethsemane  and  the  cry  on  the  cross,  "Why 
hast  thou  forsaken  me?"  still  call  for  explana- 
tion. Up  to  the  time  of  the  midnight  hour  in 
the  garden,  Jesus  had  proved  himself  to  be  the 
bravest  of  the  brave,  always  decisive,  always 
master  of  the  situation.    Why  then  this  agony  of 

*  We  may  here  aptly  repeat  the  old  story  of  the  young  man 
who  came  to  Rousseau,  no  friend  of  Christianity,  complaining 
that  after  ten  years  of  labor  he  had  not  gained  a  single  convert 
to  the  new  religion  he  had  invented.  "If  you  will  be  crucified 
and  rise  again  the  third  day,  you  will  have  no  difficulty,"  answered 
the  old  philosopher.   A  deeply  significant  reply. 


JESUS'  WORK  AND  VIEW  OF  ITS  FUTURE     I47 

soul  in  prospect  of  the  nearer  approach  of  a 
death  which  he  had  long  anticipated  and  had 
come  to  Jerusalem  to  meet?  Was  this  an  hour 
of  weakness,  of  faltering  before  a  reality,  of 
which  he  had  spoken  bravely  enough  when  it 
was  at  a  distance?  No,  we  cannot  believe  that 
Jesus  faltered  where  many  of  his  followers  have 
sung  hymns  of  triumphant  faith.  The  cry  on 
the  cross  explains  Gethsemane.  In  the  garden, 
he  found  in  the  cup  which  he  was  about  to  drain 
something  more  dreadful  to  him  than  physical 
anguish  and  death.  That  something  was  the 
clouding  of  the  perfect  communion  with  his 
Father,  which  he  had  enjoyed  from  his  earliest 
recollection,  which  was  more  than  life  to  him. 
He  had  never  anticipated  this  before  that  final 
night.  It  was  something  absolutely  new  and 
strange  to  him,  and  he  shrank  back  from  it  till 
he  learned  that  it  was  the  Father's  will,  the  only 
way  of  accomplishing  his  mission  and  securing 
the  salvation  of  men.  The  why  he  never  learned, 
and  still  asked,  "Why?"  upon  the  cross,  where 
at  last  in  those  hours  of  darkness  he  suffered  the 
dread  reahty  of  which  Gethsemane  was  but  the 
warning    shadow.     And    men    ever    since    have 


148  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

asked, ''Why?  Why  was  it  necessary? '^  Possibly 
that  our  leader  might  go  to  the  very  limits  of 
self-sacrifice  and  submission  to  the  Father's  will, 
that  he  might  taste  a  bitterness  in  death  of  which 
none  of  his  followers  can  possibly  find  the  equal. 
He  will  not  ask  us  to  tread  where  he  has  not 
preceded  and  outdone  us. 

And  this  may  not  be  all.  For  a  time  at  least 
Jesus  was  in  the  sinner's  place  in  that  there  was 
a  cloud  between  him  and  the  Father.  We  can- 
not beheve  that  the  Father  was,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  angry  with  his  Son,  now  suffering  in  obedi- 
ence to  him.  But  the  Father  did  allow  the  cloud 
to  come  between,  and  to  Jesus  it  was  all  real. 
Was  the  cause  merely  physical,  some  profound 
nervous  depression?  Even  so,  it  was  the  bitter- 
ness of  death  to  him,  and  God  allowed  it  to  be, 
as  part  of  his  plan.  And  just  what  was  the 
cloud?  Was  it  the  cloud  of  sin?  If  that  is  true, 
it  could  not  have  been  his  sin,  for  he  had  none, 
but  ours.  And  so  we  are  back  at  the  fifty-third 
of  Isaiah  again.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  this  chap- 
ter was  very  much  in  the  mind  of  the  earliest 
church,  and  very  likely  of  Jesus  himself  in  this 
very  connection. 


JESUS'  WORK  AND  VIEW  OF  ITS  FUTURE     149 

But  whatever  we  may  think  or  say  about  it, 
the  cross  has  been  the  greatest  element  of  power 
in  the  gospel.  In  all  the  long  history  it  has 
awed,  allured,  melted  and  conquered  men's 
hearts.  Paul  is  not  wrong  when  in  Romans  8:3 
he  declares  that  by  the  death  of  Jesus,  God 
had  done  a  hitherto  impossible  thing,  he  had 
by  one  act  forever  condemned  and  broken  the 
power  of  sin  and  selfishness.  By  this  act,  Jesus 
bound  the  strong  man,  and  from  that  day,  pro- 
ceeds to  spoil  him  of  his  goods.  The  powers  of 
evil  can  never  recover  from  that  deadly  blow, 
but  are  bound  to  fall  at  last  as  the  result  of  it. 
In  the  blaze  of  the  light  from  Golgotha,  all  the 
beasts  of  darkness  will  finally  creep  into  their 
holes,  never  to  emerge  again.  The  cross  will  yet 
make  Jesus  the  Lord  of  the  world;  by  its  power 
he  will  draw  all  men  unto  himself. 

Jesus'  view  of  the  future  of  his  work  is  not 
altogether  clear  and  the  subject  raises  many 
difficult  questions  much  debated  by  scholars. 
The  first  of  these  questions  is  whether  Jesus  in- 
tended to  found  a  church,  and  whether  he  fore- 
saw even  the  separation  of  his  disciples  from 
Judaism.     It   is   asserted   by    the   mpre   radical 


150  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

critics  that  Jesus  moved  wholly  in  the  narrow 
circle  of  Jewish  ideas  and  customs,  that  he  con- 
sidered his  mission  limited  to  the  Jewish  people, 
that  he  was  altogether  an  opportunist  in  his 
method,  deciding  nothing  until  the  occasion  arose 
but  leaving  all  the  future  in  his  Father's  hands, 
that  the  early  disciples  after  the  resurrection  still 
considered  themselves  Jews  and  attended  the  wor- 
ship of  the  temple,  indeed  that  Christianity  needed 
a  Paul  to  shake  it  free  from  its  Jewish  exclusive- 
ness.  It  is  furthermore  pointed  out  that  the  two 
passages  in  which  the  church  is  mentioned,  Mat- 
thew 16:  18  and  18:  17,  are  peculiar  to  Matthew 
and  are  probably  not  the  words  of  Jesus. 

We  cannot  accept  these  views  as  a  whole. 
The  evidence  gives  us  another  picture.  Phari- 
saism was  practically  Judaism.  It  had  a  pre- 
dominant influence  in  the  Sanhedrin,  and  con- 
trolled the  whole  synagogue  and  school  system 
of  Palestine.  It  permeated  the  whole  thought  of 
the  people,  and  neither  Jesus  nor  Christianity 
could  finally  unfasten  its  hold  on  the  nation. 
The  break  with  the  Pharisees  began  with  John 
the  Baptist.  He  rejected  them  and  they  rejected 
him.    His  baptism  practically  created  a  new  kind 


JESUS'   WORK  AND  VIEW  OF  ITS  FUTURE     151 

of  Jew,  known  as  the  disciples  of  John.  Finding 
no  welcome  in  Pharisaism,  they  clung  together 
and  long  survived  the  death  of  their  leader  with- 
out being  re-absorbed  into  Judaism.  John  thought 
those  who  received  his  baptism  of  repentance  the 
true  Israel  and  looked  on  the  Pharisees  as  doomed 
to  destruction.  Jesus  took  the  same  view  of  the 
Pharisees.  While  he  seems  to  have  had  some 
hopes  of  the  GaKlean  and  perhaps  of  the  Perean 
Pharisees  at  first,  his  break  with  Pharisees  as 
such  was  final  and  complete.  They  had  and 
wished  no  part  in  his  new  spiritual  kingdom,  and 
Jesus  prophesied  their  rejection  by  God  and  their 
irremediable  ruin.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was 
gathering  about  him  a  band  of  disciples,  among 
them  many  publicans  and  '^ sinners"  whom  the 
Pharisees  counted  imclean.  Jesus,  however, 
thought  these  disciples  the  heirs  of  the  kingdom 
of  God.  He  had  originally  called  them  in  order 
that,  after  suitable  instruction,  they  might  help 
him  in  his  work  of  preaching,  might  become 
"fishers  of  men,"  that  is,  missionaries  or  apostles, 
but,  when  he  chose  the  Twelve,  he  probably 
already  began  to  foresee  that  the  nation  as  such 
would  never  be  won  from  Judaism  to  enter  the 


152  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

new  society.  This  choice  of  the  Twelve  gave  his 
little  band  a  sort  of  loose  organization,  and  he 
made  the  education  of  these  leaders  one  of  the 
principal  parts  of  his  work.  He  had  no  idea 
of  a  reunion  of  his  disciples  with  contemporary 
Judaism.  Rather  he  predicted  that  the  Jews 
would  persecute  his  disciples  to  the  death,  and 
in  the  Lord's  Supper,  he  bound  them  in  a  new 
covenant  to  himself  and  to  each  other,  and  thus 
formally  founded  the  new  Society. 

Although  Jesus  was  no  revolutionary  and 
frankly  based  his  teaching  on  the  Old  Testament, 
he  looked  upon  his  mission  and  teaching  as  some- 
thing new,  and  the  Pharisees  clearly  recognized 
it  as  such.  In  his  parables  of  the  new  patch  on 
the  old  garment  and  the  new  wine  in  the  old 
wine  skins,  Jesus  declared  that  his  new  teaching 
could  never  be  related  to  the  old  so  as  to  become 
a  part  of  it.  Indeed  Judaism  would  be  destroyed, 
while  he  was  setting  up  an  everlasting  king- 
dom. 

How,  then,  can  it  be  said  that  Jesus  did  not 
foresee  the  separation  of  his  disciples  from  Ju- 
daism? And  if  he  did  get  a  vision  of  that,  he 
must  also  have  foreseen  their  future  community 


JESUS'  WORK  AND  VIEW  OF  ITS  FUTURE     1 53 

life.  They  had  gained  his  view  and  his  spirit,  and 
must  share  his  isolation  and  rejection.  So  long 
as  they  held  to  Jesus  as  Messiah,  the  Pharisees 
would  bar  them  out  and  bitterly  persecute  them. 
It  consequently  seems  as  if  Jesus  must  have  said 
some  such  words  as  those  recorded  in  Matthew 
16:  18,  "On  this  rock  I  will  build  my  church." 
They  not  only  fit  the  historical  situation,  but  it 
practically  demands  them.  By  ''church"  Jesus 
here  meant  "sacred  congregation,"  using  the 
Aramaic  equivalent  of  the  Hebrew  Old  Testa- 
ment word  for  the  congregation  of  Israel.  He 
felt  that  his  followers  were  the  true  Israel,  the 
heirs  of  the  coming  Kingdom.  On  Peter,  the 
first  confessor  of  his  spiritual  Messiahship,  he 
will  build  of  like  living  stones,  his  congregation, 
his  church. 

The  church  then  began  historically  with  the 
followers  of  John  the  Baptist,  but  developed 
under  Jesus'  teaching  and  leadership  in  Galilee 
and  Perea,  having  few,  if  any,  roots  in  Jerusalem 
and  Judea.  Yet  while  it  was  thus  brought  into 
being  by  John  and  Jesus,  it  was  a  formless  thing, 
organizing  itself  around  the  Lord  in  the  way  of 
personal  devotion,  and  recognizing  after  a  fashion 


154  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

the  moral  authority  of  the  twelve  men  whom 
Jesus  had  made  leaders. 

Harnack  and  Pfleiderer  cannot  believe  that 
Jesus  had  any  such  historical  horizon  as  to  enable 
him  to  foresee  a  Gentile  mission,  and  by  criti- 
cal or  exegetical  methods  they  eliminate  all  pas- 
sages which  appear  to  ascribe  such  foresight  to 
him. 

We  must  here,  too,  start  from  the  known 
towards  the  problematical.  Nothing  is  more  cer- 
tain about  Jesus  than  his  breadth  of  mind,  his 
depth  of  insight,  and  his  sympathy  with  the  de- 
spised and  the  outcast.  He  had  an  inward  antago- 
nism to  all  Pharisaic  exclusiveness  and  contempt 
for  others.  This  is  a  strong  preliminary  reason 
for  believing  that  Jesus  was  interested  in  Gentiles, 
who  were  common  enough  in  all  parts  of  Pales- 
tine. Three  great  a  priori  arguments  arise  too 
from  Jesus'  historical  situation.^  First,  the  Old 
Testament  is  full  of  predictions  of  the  conversion 
of  the  Gentiles.  This  is  especially  true  of  Isaiah, 
one  of  Jesus'  favorite  books,  and  the  same  thought 
is  found  in  Daniel  2:  35,  44;  7:  14.    The  last  is 

^  Care  must  be  taken  not  to  confuse  the  subject  of  the  Gentile 
mission  with  the  narrower  question  of  the  Judaistic  controversy. 


JESUS'   WORK  AND   VIEW  OF  ITS  FUTURE     1 55 

the  Son  of  Man  prophecy,  which  we  felt  justified 
in  calling  Jesus'  guiding  star  (p.  86).^  Second, 
those  who  believed  in  the  coming  of  a  political 
Messiah  believed  that  he  would  conquer  and 
finally  reign  over  all  nations.  Indeed,  the  third 
temptation  is  based  on  this  very  thought.  Would 
a  spiritual  Messiah  expect  to  do  less?  Third, 
the  Pharisees  of  Jesus'  time  carried  on  an  active 
propaganda  among  the  Gentiles,  and  had  many 
converts.  Jesus  himself  refers  to  their  compass- 
ing sea  and  land  to  make  one  proselyte  (Mat- 
thew 23:  15).  Would  Jesus  have  his  "fishers  of 
men"  less  zealous? 

Add  to  these  familiar  elements  of  the  thought- 
world  of  Jesus  the  fact  that  he  himself  spent 
some  weeks  or  months  in  heathen  Phoenicia  and 
Syria  after  the  crisis  at  Capernaum.  Can  we 
believe  that  he  went  through  that  experience 
without  having  his  heart  moved  with  compassion 
for  the  Gentiles,  although  it  may  not  have  been 
wise  for  him  to  give  expression  to  it  then?    Note 

^It  seems  clear  that  Jesus  identified  himself  with  Isaiah's 
Servant  of  Jehovah,  who  is  represented  as  God's  Messenger  of 
Salvation  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  (Isa.  49:  5,  6,  and  other 
passages).  This  is  another  strong  proof  of  his  consciousness  of 
a  world-wide  mission. 


156  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

especially  that  before  he  took  this  journey,  he  had 
been  eager  to  help  the  Gentile  centurion,  who 
had  asked  him  to  heal  his  servant,  and  had  been 
loud  in  his  praise  of  the  heathen^s  faith,  nay, 
without  hesitation  was  proceeding  to  enter  his 
house,  something  which  even  Peter  was  loath 
to  do  years  afterwards  (Acts  10:  28,  11:  3),  and 
was  only  stopped  by  the  centurion's  considerate 
message.  The  centurion  knew  the  Jewish  prej- 
udice and  would  not  permit  Jesus  to  expose 
himself  to  ceremonial  defilement.  Note  also  that 
the  Syrophoenician  asked  for  help  just  at  the 
beginning  of  this  foreign  tour.  Many  things 
combined  to  make  her  request  seem  untimely, 
but,  as  we  have  seen,  Jesus  reconciled  his  Jewish 
mission  with  his  aid  to  the  Gentile  on  the  prin- 
ciple that  faith  rather  than  nationality  admitted 
to  membership  in  his  new  Israel.  This  incident 
in  all  its  significance  would  go  with  him  during 
his  entire  journey.  Nor  should  it  be  overlooked 
that  the  visit  of  Gentiles  from  this  very  territory 
described  in  the  twelfth  of  John  is  exactly  in 
line  with  the  foregoing. 

The  spiritual  character  of  the  kingdom  which 


JESUS'  WORK  AND  VIEW  OF  ITS  FUTURE     157 

Jesus  preached  and  its  spiritual  conditions  of 
entrance  plainly  implied  the  universality  of  its 
membership.  And  this  is  strengthened  when  we 
remember  that  Jesus  absolutely  repudiated  the 
nationalistic  ideal  of  Messiahship  and  the  king- 
dom. This  spiritual  character  of  the  kingdom 
made  it  the  property  of  the  poor  in  spirit  and 
the  pure  in  heart,  freed  men  from  all  class  dis- 
tinctions and  race  prejudice,  and  brought  them 
into  a  new  world  of  love  and  brotherhood.  Can 
we  think  that  he  who  first  gave  the  world  this 
wonderful  charter  of  spiritual  liberty  really  did 
not  understand  its  true  significance  or  its  simplest 
implications;  that  Jesus,  the  originator  of  the 
idea,  comprehended  it  less  clearly  than  Paul, 
its  expounder?  Furthermore,  the  universality  of 
Messiah's  reign  is  a  necessary  logical  corollary  of 
monotheism.  If  there  is  one  God,  he  must  be 
God  of  both  Jews  and  Gentiles,  and  interested  in 
the  salvation  of  all.  This  is  Paul's  argument 
in  Romans  3:  29-31.  Could  not  Jesus  also  draw 
so  plain  an  inference?  There  can  be  but  one 
answer,  and  that  answer  is  further  confirmed  by 
Jesus'   acknowledged    attitude    towards    Samari- 


158  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

tans,  whom  the  Jews  hated  certainly  as  cordially 
as  they  did  Gentiles.^ 

These  considerations  make  the  reference  of 
Jesus  to  the  Gentile  mission  perfectly  natural, 
though  it  is  probable  that  the  thought  came  into 
greater  prominence  after  his  foreign  tour.  This 
favorable  feeling  towards  Gentiles  gives  point 
to  his  first  speech  at  Nazareth  (Luke  4:  24-29). 
The  universalism  of  the  salt  of  the  earth  and  the 
light  of  the  world  (Matthew  5:  13,  14)  is  unmis- 
takable. The  reference  to  many  coming  from 
the  east  and  the  west  and  sitting  down  with 
Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob  in  the  kingdom  of 
Heaven  while  the  sons  of  the  kingdom  shall  be 
cast  out,  in  its  immediate  connection  with  the 
Gentile  centurion's  faith  and  in  a  passage  criti- 
cally unassailable,  is  decisive  for  Jesus'  inclusion 
of  Gentiles  in  the  kingdom  (Matthew  8:  11,  12; 
Luke  13:  28,  29).  Being  brought  before  govern- 
ors and  kings,  therefore,  naturally  implies  the  mis- 

1  While  Jesus  never  discussed  the  question  of  circimicision  or 
pronounced  on  the  issue  raised  in  the  Judaistic  controversy,  the 
evidence  adduced  above  leaves  us  in  no  doubt  as  to  whether 
Jesus  would  have  sided  with  Paul  or  the  Judaizers,  had  the  ques- 
tion arisen  in  his  day.  Here  Jesus,  Stephen  and  Paul  stand  to- 
gether. 


JESUS'  WORK  AND  VIEW  OF  ITS  FUTURE     1 59 

sion  to  the  heathen  (Mark  13:  9;  Matthew  10: 18). 
In  these  circumstances,  we  doubtless  have  a  gen- 
uine saying  of  Jesus  in  the  prophecy  that  the 
anointing  by  Mary  should  be  heralded,  wherever 
the  gospel  is  preached  in  the  whole  world.  And 
the  entire  discussion  greatly  strengthens  the  uni- 
versal Great  Commission  of  the  risen  Savior.  We 
cannot  doubt  that  "the  world  was  in  his  heart.''  ^ 
Jesus  then  believed  that  his  disciples  would 
separate  from  Judaism,  would  form  a  new  com- 
munity, the  true  Israel,  ^  that  this  gospel  would 
be  preached  among  the  Gentiles  and  received  by 
them,  and  that  all  peoples,  nations  and  languages 
would  serve  him  (Dan.  7:  14,  the  "Son  of  Man" 
passage).  Jesus  therefore  was  the  Founder  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  We  do  not  mean  that  God  had 
not  reigned  truly  but  imperfectly  in  the  hearts  of 
Abraham,  Moses,  Samuel  and  Isaiah  before  this 
time,  but  we  do  say  that  Jesus  definitely  set 
before  himself,  as  they  did  not,  the  idea  of  a 

*  Mk.  13:  10;  Mt.  21: 43,  and  the  numerous  universalistic  pas- 
sages in  John  are  omitted  from  the  discussion,  because  they  would 
carry  little  weight  with  those  who  take  the  opposite  side,  and 
some  of  them  are  possibly  open  to  legitimate  critical  and  ex^- 
getical  objections. 

2  Indeed  these  changes  had  already  occurred  in  principle  and 
had  been  partially  worked  out  historically. 


l6o  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

concrete  spiritual  kingdom,  which  would  take  prac- 
tical form  as  a  body  of  men  bound  together  only 
by  spiritual  ties,  calling  themselves  brethren  be- 
cause all  felt  in  themselves  the  working  of  the  same 
new  life;  a  definite  body  of  people  in  the  world 
but  not  of  the  world,  having  the  one  definite  pur- 
pose of  bringing  the  whole  world  to  enjoy  their 
blessing  of  spiritual  life.  This  mission,  which  was 
his  mission,  he  left  at  his  death  in  the  hands  of  a 
few  ordinary  men  of  a  despised  race,  and  with  only 
an  imperfect  understanding  of  their  task.  But  he 
trusted  their  faith  and  love  and  God's  ability  to 
use  them  in  this  high  enterprise.  This  little  band, 
which  he  still  inspires  with  his  life  and  energy,  has 
become  the  dominant  force  in  our  civilization,  and 
the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it. 

Jesus  takes  pains  to  describe  the  processes  of 
the  kingdom's  growth.  The  influence  of  his 
disciples  will  be  all  pervading;  like  salt,  saving 
the  world  from  its  corruptions,  like  light,  bring- 
ing to  all  men  the  knowledge  of  the  Father.  The 
growth  is  from  small  to  large,  from  beginning  to 
consummation  and  ever  from  within  outward. 
Jesus  likens  it  to  the  mighty,  silent,  self-acting 
forces  of  nature.     The  parables  in  which  these 


JESUS*  WORK  AND  VIEW  OF  ITS  FUTURE     l6l 

truths  are  expressed  sound  almost  like  those  of  a 
modern  evolutionist.  Yet  Jesus  emphasizes  the 
divine  agency  more  than  the  human  cooperation. 
The  kingdom  is  God's,  it  is  from  heaven;  the 
initial  impulse,  the  fundamental  energy,  the  power 
for  consummation,  are  divine.  Nor  will  the  de- 
velopment be  always  even  and  peaceful.  The 
kingdom  is  bound  to  enter  upon  a  fierce  life-and- 
death  struggle  with  its  environment,  a  conflict 
which  will  end  in  victory  only  after  the  most 
dreadful  persecutions  and  martyrdoms.  Jesus 
came  to  send  not  peace,  but  a  sword. 

As  to  the  outcome,  Jesus  had  not  the  slightest 
doubt.  It  will  be  a  complete  and  final  victory. 
But  whether  that  victory  is  to  be  won  before 
his  second  Coming  is  not  made  clear.  On  this 
point  the  evidence  is  conflicting  and  confused. 
The  one  passage  which  hints  a  pessimistic  view, 
that  the  Son  of  Man  at  his  Coming  will  fail  to 
find  faith  on  the  earth  (Luke  i8:  8),  is  in  all 
probability  a  very  early  interpolation  from  the 
margin  of  the  manuscript.  The  Leaven,  more 
or  less  supported  by  some  other  growth  parables, 
seems  to  know  nothing  of  the  second  Coming  and 
to  rely  merely  on  the  spiritual  vitality  of  the 


l62  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

kingdom  to  carry  it  on  to  success  by  the  use 
of  preaching  in  its  largest  sense.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  parable  of  the  Sower  teaches  only  par- 
tial success,  and  the  Tares  tells  us  plainly  that 
wheat  and  tares  shall  grow  together  until  the 
harvest.  Yet  these  too  are  evolutionary  parables 
of  growth.  The  parables  of  the  return  of  the  house- 
holder, the  king  and  the  bridegroom  likewise  assert 
that  they  will  find  good  and  bad  at  their  home- 
coming. Indeed,  this  is  the  predominant  repre- 
sentation. It  seems  possible  that  the  parables  of 
the  former  type  belong  to  the  period  when  Jesus 
expected  to  succeed  in  his  campaign  of  preaching, 
the  latter  sort  to  the  time  after  he  became  sure  of 
his  death  and  as  a  result  began  to  preach  his 
second  Coming  to  his  disciples.  The  difference  is 
not  so  great  as  it  first  seems,  however.  In  both 
representations  final  victory  is  assured  and,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  by  spiritual  means  (cf.  p.  9of.). 

However  great  the  difficulties  involved,  the 
evidence  seems  to  prove  that  Jesus  looked  for- 
ward to  his  resurrection  as  well  as  to  his  second 
Coming.  And  we  cannot  help  asking.  How  did 
Jesus  come  to  think  that  he  would  rise  again? 
Of  course,  all  good  Jews  of  his  time  believed  in 


JESUS'  WORK  AND  VIEW  OF  ITS  FUTURE     1 63 

the  resurrection  at  the  last  day,  but  Jesus  antici- 
pated for  himself  something  entirely  different,  in 
fact,  unique.  This  assurance  was  possibly  the 
complex  result  of  several  lines  of  faith  and  feeling. 
Jesus'  extraordinary  career  was  based  on  his  ex- 
perience of  perfect  moral  union  and  communion 
with  his  Father  and  his  consequent  call  to  bring 
men  into  that  same  experience.  As  he  looked 
forward  to  a  fast  approaching  death,  and  felt 
it  to  be  a  divinely  appointed  part  of  his  mission 
of  salvation,  long  since  foretold  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, he  felt  that  death  could  not  be  the  end 
either  of  him  or  his  work.  His  cross  might  be 
necessary  to  the  triumph  of  the  kingdom,  but 
could  not  be  its  consummation.  That  glorious 
kingdom  of  the  future  must  lie  beyond  his  death. 
Further,  he  had  first  reahzed  the  kingdom  in 
his  own  heart  and  life.  The  kingdom  came  with 
him.  He  had  been  its  founder  among  men,  had 
been  the  center  of  its  life,  power  and  righteous- 
ness. He  was  the  Messiah-king.  He  could  not 
conceive  of  the  further  development  of  the  king- 
dom without  him.  He  was  necessary  to  it.  God 
had  called  him  for  this  purpose  and  there  was 
no  other  to  complete  the  task.    So  he  felt  that 


164  THE  MAN  OF  NAZAEETH 

death  after  all  could  not  for  any  extended  time 
sever  his  personal  relation  to  the  kingdom.  Nor 
did  he  believe  that  his  Father,  of  whose  love  he 
had  never  had  the  shadow  of  a  doubt,  would 
leave  him  the  prey  of  death  (Mark  12:  26f.,  cf. 
Acts  2:  24-28)  or  that  he  would  allow  the  ene- 
mies of  his  kingdom  the  lasting  triumph  of  the 
cross.  These  subjective  feelings  were  justified 
by  the  History.  All  now  agree  that  without  the 
disciples'  belief  in  the  resurrection,  all  Jesus'  work 
would  have  come  to  naught. 

But,  most  important  of  all,  Jesus  felt  within 
himself  an  indestructible  life,  a  vital  energy  far 
above  that  of  other  men,  a  power  which  had 
brought  health  to  ten  thousand  sick,  which  was 
more  than  a  match  for  leprosy  itself,  which  had 
even  revivified  the  dead.  He  had  indeed  been  a 
victor  in  his  conflict  with  Satan,  had  bound  the 
strong  man  and  spoiled  his  goods  by  casting  out 
innumerable  demons,  had  defied  and  overcome 
all  the  powers  of  evil  and  darkness.  He  felt  that, 
though  he  might  die,  death  was  not  congruous 
with  his  nature  and  that  he  would  snap  its  bond. 

He  therefore  thought  of  himself  as  always  con- 
tinuing with  his  disciples  (Matthew  18:  20;  28:  20) 


JESUS'   WORK  AND   VIEW  OF  ITS  FUTURE     l6$ 

to  answer  their  petitions,  to  be  their  helper  and 
leader  in  all  their  work  of  building  the  kingdom. 
To  be  sure,  he  would  be  present  no  longer  visibly, 
but  by  his  Spirit,  who  would  dwell  in  their  hearts, 
take  his  place,  and  do  for  them  all  that  he  had 
done  during  his  earthly  ministry,  and  more 
(John  14-16).  So  Paul  calls  the  glorified  Lord 
'Hhe  Spirit"  (2  Cor.  3:  18). 

And  he  would  come  again.  We  have  shown 
(p.  9 if.)  that  this  is  probably  also  a  purely  spiri- 
tual coming,  but  so  personal  that  all  would  recog- 
nize his  presence,  and  so  dynamic  as  finally  to 
extirpate  all  the  forces  of  incorrigible  evil,  and 
lift  the  whole  world  up  into  a  new  age  of  spiritual 
power,  that  glorious  final  perfect  stage  of  the 
kingdom,  which  the  Father  has  planned.  In 
other  words,  Jesus  was  certain  of  personal  triumph 
in  his  mighty  enterprise  and  a  final  triumph  in 
spite  of  death,  nay,  through  death,  a  triumph 
which  God  had  pledged  him  in  his  very  call,  and 
which  was  as  certain  to  come  as  God  was  to  con- 
tinue righteous  and  supreme.  Representing  all 
that  was  purest  and  hoHest  in  the  universe,  Jesus 
was  sure  that  "he  must  reign  until  he  had  put  all 
his  enemies  under  his  feet"  (i  Cor.  15:  25). 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS 

What  Jesus  was,  was  the  root  of  all  that  he 
said  and  did.  All  he  taught  originated  in  his 
inner  experience,  and  his  life  was  the  undistorted 
reflex  of  his  heart.  This  is  what  gives  him  that 
indefinable  charm  of  simplicity,  naturalness  and 
reality,  familiar  to  all  readers  of  the  gospels. 
Clear  waters  flow  from  a  pure  spring. 

The  two  foci  of  Jesus'  inner  experience  were 
his  Father  and  his  mission  of  salvation  for  men 
(Luke  2:  49),  but  of  these  his  Father  was  first. 
The  deepest  secret  of  Jesus  is  his  relation  to  his 
Father.  He  could  not  remember  the  beginning 
of  that  divine  fellowship,  close,  delightful,  un- 
broken, reverent.  He  lived  in  the  sunshine  of 
his  Father's  smile.  He  was  conscious  of  such  a 
real  unity  of  love,  thought  and  purpose  with 
God,  that  he  could  call  him  nothing  less  than 
Father,  and  himself  nothing  else  than  Son.  His 
greatest  happiness  was  in  communion  with  the 

166 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  167 

Father.  Prayer  was  his  vital  breath,  the  basic 
activity  of  his  soul.  His  life  was  consequently  a 
life  of  childlike  trust  in  his  Father's  love  and  wis- 
dom. Even  when  his  skies  darkened,  and  apparent 
failure  and  death  loomed  large  upon  his  horizon, 
he  still  trusted.  He  knew  that  the  Father's  will 
was  best,  and  left  all  the  future  in  the  Father's 
hands.  Even  in  that  last  strange  cry  upon  the 
cross,  God  is  still  "my  God."  Jesus  cannot,  will 
not  and  does  not  lose  his  hold  on  God. 

In  one  of  the  few  passages  in  which  Jesus  refers 
to  his  own  inner  experience,  he  tells  us  that  his 
life  had  a  joy  deeper  than  all  perplexity  and 
sorrow,  and  a  peace  which  the  world  could  neither 
give  nor  take  away.  And  this  joy  and  peace 
sprang  from  his  sense  of  his  Father's  love.  That 
love  was  his  life.  He  consciously  lived  and  moved 
and  had  his  being  in  God.  Never  the  shadow  of 
a  doubt  flitted  across  his  mind.  God  was  the 
bottom  of  his  certainty,  the  beginning,  middle 
and  end  of  all  things  to  him.  He  was  incapable 
of  a  single  thought  or  act,  he  heard  or  saw  noth- 
ing which  he  did  not  instinctively  relate  to  God. 
"He  was  as  full  of  religion  as  a  rose  is  of  fragrance 
or  a  nightingale  of  song."     What  wonder  then 


1 68  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

that  when  he  began  his  work,  he  knew  nothing 
except  heart-religion  and  proved  the  relentless 
foe  of  externalism  and  imposed  authority,  and 
that  he  founded  his  whole  conception  of  salvation 
on  the  possibility  of  such  a  unique  relation  be- 
tween God  and  man  as  had  never  been  broached 
before. 

Out  of  this  blessed  fellowship  with  the  Father 
and  his  sense  of  the  spiritual  need  of  men,  came 
Jesus'  idea  of  his  mission.  He  wanted  all  men  to 
share  the  Father's  love  with  him,  and  knew  that 
all  their  sorrow,  sin  and  fear  would  vanish  as 
soon  as  they  came  into  possession  of  what  he  had 
always  enjoyed.  And  he  felt  that  he  must  and 
could  bring  them  into  that  blessed  state.  His 
deep  love  and  regard  for  men  permitted  nothing 
less.  This  was  his  mission  in  the  world.  This 
was  the  work  which  God  had  given  him  to  do,  a 
work  of  salvation  which  included  in  it  all  lesser 
good.  So  he  called  himself  Messiah,  and  Messiah- 
ship  meant  to  him  just  this  and  nothing  else. 
In  Jesus'  mind  Messiah  meant  Savior,  the  One 
whom  God  had  anointed  to  bring  salvation  to 
men. 

Certainty.    Jesus  was  sure  of  God  and  of  his 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  1 69 

mission,  and  his  certainty  was  and  is  one  of  the 
elements  of  his  power.  He  knew  God  as  well  as 
he  knew  his  mother.  In  fact,  he  says  that  no 
one  ever  knew  God  so  well  as  he  (Matthew  11: 
27).  His  mission  came  with  a  "must.'*  It  was 
an  inner  necessity.  He  could  not  and  would  not 
hold  back.  Like  all  great  men,  and  yet  more 
surely  than  any  other  great  man,  he  was  positive 
that  he  had  been  sent  into  the  world  to  do  a 
definite  thing  and  the  nature  of  that  definite 
thing  was  perfectly  clear  to  his  mind.  His  as- 
surance of  life  beyond  death  and  of  the  consum- 
mation of  his  work  in  his  final  Coming  showed 
that  his  certainty  stood  tests  such  as  no  other 
man's  faith  in  his  mission  has  ever  surmounted. 
Courage.  So  he  undertook  his  God-given  work 
without  hesitation  or  misgiving,  in  the  naked 
strength  of  a  mighty  and  noble  purpose  in  which 
he  rejoiced  with  joy  unspeakable  and  full  of 
glory.  He  was  filled  with  a  high  enthusiasm, 
which  was  tempered  indeed  by  the  events  of  the 
ministry,  but  ran  more  strongly  when  it  ran 
deep.  He  was  never  discouraged,  fretted  or 
soured  by  opposition  and  seeming  failure.  He 
was  aggressive  from  the  very  start  and  pressed 


lyo  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

the  work.  No  more  tireless  preacher  ever  lived. 
When  enemies  arose,  he  was  not  content  merely 
to  defend,  but  stormed  their  works  and  carried 
the  war  into  Africa.  There  was  about  him  a 
holy  boldness  which  utterly  disconcerted  his 
foes,  and  eventually  made  timid  fishermen  into 
Sons  of  Thunder  (Acts  4:  13).  So  sure  of  himself 
was  he,  that  he  sometimes  seemed  to  risk  all  on 
a  single  hazard,  and  almost  recklessly  to  defy 
his  opponents  to  put  him  to  the  test  (Mark  2: 
9-12).  He  was  the  bravest  of  the  brave.  Almost 
single  handed,  he  faced  a  nation,  an  age,  a  world, 
which  was  bound  to  misunderstand,  oppose  and 
hate  him,  and  yet  always  with  the  same  lofty 
courage.  No  forlorn  hope  was  ever  led  more 
resolutely  than  the  last  march  of  Jesus'  little 
band  from  Galilee  to  Jerusalem.  The  serene 
calm  of  Jesus  before  the  Sanhedrin  and  Pilate, 
and  on  the  way  to  the  cross,  will  never  cease  to 
compel  the  world's  admiration. 

Jesus'  simple  confidence  in  his  final  triumph  was 
superb.  In  spite  of  all  outward  defeats,  he  had 
in  his  soul  a  continuous  victory  of  faith.  Ob- 
stacles hke  the  cross,  unforeseen  at  the  beginning, 
could  not  dim  that  supreme  assurance,  for  it  was 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  171 

based  on  his  Father's  love  for  him  and  for  men, 
and  in  an  optimism  with  regard  to  our  race, 
which  had  never  before  been  cherished  in  a  hmnan 
heart.  So,  strange  to  say,  he  was  not  in  the  least 
nervous  or  anxious  about  the  outcome.  He 
never  swerved  a  hair  from  the  straight  path  of 
his  purpose  to  gain  a  single  convert,  or  to  keep 
a  multitude  from  deserting  him.  He  was  so 
certain  of  triumph  that  he  could  wait  for  it  and 
bide  the  time  when  he  could  have  it  on  his  own 
terms.  This  is  the  finest  patience,  and  patience 
is  courage  long  drawn  out,  the  last  test  of  the 
bravest  hearts. 

Joy.  Jesus  was  not  only  sure,  enthusiastic, 
hopeful  and  brave,  but  he  was  positively  joyous. 
It  was  the  joy  of  certainty,  love  and  strength; 
a  Son's  joy  deeply  based  in  his  Father's  affection, 
a  Savior's  joy  in  the  rescue  of  the  lost,  a  strong 
man's  joy  in  a  great  and  worthy  task,  in  battling 
with  the  storm.  So  he  partook  with  zest  of  life's 
pure  pleasures;  he  enjoyed  nature,  children, 
friends,  the  busy  world  in  all  its  phases.  His 
spirit  was  fresh  and  exultant.  The  early  days 
of  the  ministry  seemed  to  him  like  a  wedding 
party  with  himself  as  the  bridegroom.    Whatever 


172  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

others  might  think  of  fasting,  it  was  alien  to  his 
mood.  Life  to  him  was  a  continual  feast  and  he 
so  represented  it.  He  wanted  this  happy  spirit 
to  be  contagious  (John  15:  ii).  He  pleaded  with 
men  to  enter  into  the  joy  (Luke  15:  28-32). 
"On  the  two  occasions^  when  Jesus  took  special 
pains  to  justify  his  conduct  to  his  enemies,  he 
was  really  explaining  why  he  and  his  disciples 
were  so  joyful.'^  To  be  sure,  as  the  ministry 
went  on  to  its  tragic  issue,  the  tone  of  Jesus  grew 
more  solemn.  He  was  indeed  "a  man  of  sorrows, 
and  acquainted  with  grief,"  but  there  is  no  con- 
tradiction here.  Joy  and  sorrow  are  not  enemies 
but  twin  brothers.  Indeed  in  the  midst  of  trou- 
ble and  sadness,  Jesus'  joy  only  grew  in  depth 
and  ripened  into  triumph  as  he  became  assured 
that  he  would  gain  more  by  his  death  than  he 
ever  had  by  his  life.  He  came  to  rejoice  in  his 
great  sacrifice  as  his  supreme  victory.  On  the 
last  night,  he  could  say,  "I  have  overcome  the 
world,"  and  could  leave  as  a  legacy  to  his  dis- 
ciples not  only  his  peace,  but  his  joy. 

Love.    The  call  to  the  work  of  saving  men  to 
God  and  to  goodness  foimd  a  ready  response  in 
1  Mark  2:18-20;  Luke  15:  1-32. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  1 73 

Jesus'  tender  heart.  Love  made  him  Savior.  Com- 
passion for  men  in  darkness,  perplexity,  sorrow  and 
sin  constrained  him  to  show  them  how  to  enter  into 
light  and  certainty,  joy  and  holiness.  Thus  love  to 
men  goes  back  to  the  beginning  of  his  experience 
so  rich  in  love  to  God,  and  proves  itself  one  of  the 
major  constituent  elements  in  his  character. 

His  love  was  perfectly  natural  and  simple. 
He  loved  men  as  men.  He  never  asked  why  he 
should  love  men.  He  just  loved  them.  They 
seemed  to  him  to  need  love  and  he  gave  it  with- 
out stint.  Man  seemed  to  him  most  lovable, 
more  valuable  than  all  else  beside,  a  single  soul 
worth  more  than  a  whole  world.  Before  the 
shrine  of  every  human  heart  he  stood  with  rever- 
ence. He  would  not  force  open  the  door,  nor 
do  violence  to  the  will,  nor  intrude  upon  the 
secrets  of  the  unwilling  soul.  His  respect  for 
personality  was  perfect.  That  men  were  stupid, 
foolish,  sinful  and  foul  only  made  him  the  more 
eager.  He  was  the  physician  for  sick  souls.  He 
had  no  doubts  that  men  could  rise  from  weakness 
and  sin  into  spiritual  health  and  wholeness.  He 
was  strangely  optimistic  about  the  least  hopeful 
cases.    It  was  the  faith  of  love. 


174  THE  MAN  or  NAZARETH 

Just  because  he  held  men  so  high,  he  sought 
their  good  the  more  earnestly  and  persistently. 
And  it  was  no  sentimental  love  that  he  showed 
and  taught,  but  a  love  of  deed,  a  true  kindliness, 
thoughtfulness,  a  loving  service  which  shrank 
from  no  sacrifice,  a  real  doing  of  good.  Nor  did 
his  love  know  any  limits  of  class  or  sex  or  nation 
or  creed.  He  had  no  race  or  social  prejudices. 
He  loved  men  for  themselves,  rich  and  poor, 
men,  women  and  children,  Pharisees,  Gentiles 
and  publicans,  lepers  and  Sanhedrists,  Samari- 
tans, scribes  and  sinners,  respectable  and  outcast, 
good  and  bad,  friends  and  enemies.  He  loved 
them  all  and  there  was  nothing  which  he  would 
not  do  for  their  true  good.  And  he  who  led  this 
life  of  practical  love  also  preached  love  as  the 
sum  of  the  whole  Old  Testament  and  of  his  new 
religion  too,  and  along  with  love,  as  variation 
or  by-product  of  it,  he  preached  and  exemplified 
gentleness,  patience,  mercy,  charity,  forgiveness, 
generosity  and  peace,  giving  these  passive  vir- 
tues for  the  first  time  a  standing  as  indispensable 
to  character.  So  he  lived  and  preached  and  died 
to  bring  the  reign  of  love  into  this  old  world  of 
selfishness  and  greed  and  hate. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  1 75 

That  this  was  no  assumed  and,  as  it  were,  pro- 
fessional love  is  proved  by  his  entire  character 
and  career.  Rather  it  was  instinctive.  He  had 
a  sensitive  nature.  He  was  no  cold,  detached, 
impassive  philosopher  or  ascetic,  a  mere  onlooker, 
while  men  strove  and  struggled.  Rather  he 
plunged  into  the  struggle  himself.  His  emotions 
were  strong  and  warm.  His  heart  was  tender. 
He  loved  his  friends.  Bold  and  firm  as  he  was, 
he  suffered  imder  opposition  and  hatred,  though 
he  did  not  allow  them  to  narrow  or  spoil  his  life. 
He  knew  trouble  and  sorrow,  and  his  sensitive 
spirit  sometimes  cried  out  in  its  pain. 

He  had  a  strong  social  nature.  He  loved  the 
crowded  streets,  the  feast,  the  wedding,  the 
eager  multitude  and  all  the  ways  of  men.  To 
be  sure,  he  often  preferred  to  be  alone  on  the 
distant  mountain  to  spend  the  night  with  his 
Father  in  prayer,  but,  next  day,  refreshed,  he  was 
engaged  again  among  the  busy  throng.  Sym- 
pathetic by  nature,  he  felt  the  need  of  company 
and  the  strength  supplied  by  the  presence  of 
loving  friends.  No  one  more  deeply  appreciated 
the  affection  lavished  upon  him,  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  was  free  from  the  weakness  of  self-pity, 


176  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

he  knew  how  to  stand  alone.  He  loved  nature 
and  children  too,  as  few  in  his  day  did,  and  as 
he  has  taught  the  world  to  do.  This  inborn  love 
gave  this  Galilean  peasant  an  exquisite  refine- 
ment and  courtesy.  He  was  the  first  and  fore- 
most Christian  gentleman  of  all  time,  and  though 
he  loved  all,  he  was  filled  with  the  rarest  chivalry 
for  those  who  had  no  helper,  for  women,  for  the 
poor,  the  outcast  and  the  fallen.  The  friendless, 
at  last,  had  a  great  and  tender  friend. 

This  Jesus  was  incarnate  love.  He  was  abso- 
lutely unselfish.  He  had  no  ambitions  to  satisfy, 
he  never  gave  a  thought  to  riches,  he  sought  no 
pleasures  outside  the  one  great  work  to  which 
he  had  devoted  himself  with  entire  single-hearted- 
ness, the  highest  good,  the  salvation  of  men. 
He  wanted  nothing  for  himself.  All  he  desired 
was  to  give,  to  help,  to  sympathize,  to  heal,  for- 
getting all  his  own  comfort,  consuming  himself 
in  labor  for  others,  and  finally  dying  that  they 
might  live.  He  felt  that  he  had  so  much  of  spiri- 
tual blessing  that  he  could  be  lavish  in  its  be- 
stowal. He  was  the  first  great  lover  of  men,  and 
none  of  his  followers  has  yet  equalled  him 
here. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  1 77 

And  just  at  this  point  is  solved  the  most  serious 
seeming  contradiction  in  his  character.  Jesus 
was  great,  and  he  was  conscious  of  his  power,  as 
all  truly  great  men  are.  He  was  Messiah,  Lord 
and  King,  and  this  he  asserted  in  no  uncertain 
words.  Yet  he  did  not  grasp  at  authority  (Phil. 
2:  6-8),  rather  he  praised  humility,  and  said 
that  he  was  meek  and  lowly  in  heart.  How  can 
these  two  things  coexist  in  one  spirit?  His  love 
solves  it  all.  He  did  not  look  on  his  Messiahship 
as  a  self-won  dignity  of  which  to  be  proud,  but 
as  a  divinely  given  commission  to  be  performed, 
a  service  of  love  to  be  rendered.  To  him,  as  we 
have  said,  Messiah  meant  Savior.  There  was 
no  work  so  important  or  so  lowly  that  he  did 
not  rejoice  to  do  it.  He  washed  the  disciples' 
feet  the  night  before  he  died  upon  the  cross,  and 
for  him  there  was  no  distinction  in  kind  between 
the  two  acts.  So  his  greatness  was  in  his  power 
to  serve.  He  ranks  first  in  self-sacrifice.  He 
was  Lord  because  he  was  conscious  of  absolutely 
unequalled  resources  for  effective  results  in  his 
labor  for  men.  And  when  he  bids  men  call  him 
Lord,  he  only  asks  them  to  reverence  in  him 
the  supreme  claims  of  self-denying  service.     He 


178  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

is  king,  because  above  all  others  lie  is  mighty  in 
the  power  of  his  love. 

Wisdom.  Even  Christian  men  think  too  little 
today  of  the  sagacity  and  breadth  of  Jesus.  In 
him  we  find  the  profoundest  wisdom  and  orig- 
inality just  where,  on  natural  principles,  we 
should  not  expect  it.  It  was  an  unschooled 
wisdom,  the  wisdom  of  the  practical  man,  the 
wisdom  of  the  spiritual  man,  not  the  wisdom  of 
the  student,  and  yet  a  wisdom  greater  than  any 
scholar  or  philosopher  has  ever  exhibited.  It 
did  not  come  from  books,  or  from  travel,  or  from 
wide  experience  of  men  and  affairs.  It  seems  to 
have  been  inborn.  Everything  in  his  age  and 
country  was  against  the  appearance  of  such  a 
wisdom.  For  here  breadth  seems  to  spring  from 
Jewish  narrowness,  insight  from  legalistic  ex- 
ternalism,  and  practicality  from  a  system  which 
had  left  common  sense  behind.  Surely  the  people 
who  sat  in  darkness  saw  a  great  light  (Matthew 
4:  16). 

There  is  a  reasonableness,  sanity  and  self- 
mastery  in  Jesus  which  put  him  immediately  in 
the  class  of  great  men,  and  before  which  all 
charges  of  being  a  visionary  fall  harmless.     He 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  1 79 

took  large  views.  He  refused  to  be  caught  in  the 
eddies  of  the  current  of  his  times.  He  always 
sailed  in  midstream.  He  was  calmly  superior  to 
the  one-sidedness,  the  prejudices  and  the  extremes 
of  his  contemporaries.  He  has  commended  him- 
self to  the  better  sense  of  all  ages  and  races.  The 
universal  and  eternal  were  strong  in  him.  And 
this  is  the  more  noteworthy,  when  we  remember 
his  emphasis  on  the  inner  man,  the  spirit,  and 
the  life  of  prayer  and  faith.  The  temptation  of 
such  natures  is  always  to  extravagance  and  fana- 
ticism, though  it  has  often  happened,  as  in  the 
case  of  Jesus,  that  the  most  unworldly  spirits 
have  seen  the  nature  and  trend  of  real  life  most 
clearly.  Jesus  was  indeed  an  idealist  but  he  was 
under  no  illusions.  He  was  led  of  the  Spirit,  but 
he  never  deserted  the  sphere  of  the  practical. 
He  was  foremost  in  the  ranks  of  progress,  but  he 
was  no  iconoclast.  He  made  ideal  demands,  but, 
rightly  interpreted,  he  never  forgot  that  his  fol- 
lowers were  human  after  all.  Indeed,  there  often 
appears  in  his  teaching  a  homely  common  sense, 
which  might  almost  be  mistaken  for  worldly 
wisdom.  This  remarkable  balance  both  in  word 
and  in  action  seems  not  to  have  been  the  result 


l8o  THE   MAN   OF   NAZARETH 

of  study  or  calculation,  but  to  have  been  spon- 
taneous and  natural  to  him.  He  had  that  high- 
est genius  which  enables  a  man  to  take  in  the 
whole  situation  at  a  glance,  to  see  around  things 
and  behind  them. 

The  man  of  balance  is  often  cold,  judicial  and 
incapable  of  decisive  action,  but  Jesus  combined 
balance  with  enthusiasm,  wisdom  with  aggres- 
siveness, sanity  with  magnificent  leadership.  He 
made  statements  whose  reasonableness  none  could 
deny,  which  yet  set  standards  which  none  have 
ever  reached.  His  breadth  never  dulled  the 
sharpness  of  his  cutting  edge,  nor  did  his  large- 
ness of  mind  ever  paralyze  his  ability  to  give 
the  smashing  blow.  As  the  result  of  a  judicial 
outlook  on  the  situation,  he  could  wait,  but 
none  ever  acted  with  greater  decisiveness  than 
he,  when  the  time  for  action  came. 

In  an  age  when  precedent  was  everything,  he 
had  the  wisdom  and  the  firmness  to  be  absolutely 
independent,  allying  himself  or  seeking  alliance 
with  no  party,  never  compromising  his  truth  for 
the  sake  of  a  following,  never  content  with  a 
partial  success,  never  for  a  moment  diverted  from 
his  great  aim.     Sometimes  he  is  called  a  revolu- 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  l8l 

tionary  and  this  is  as  warmly  denied.  The  debate 
is  due  to  his  instinctive  equipoise.  He  saw  the 
good  in  the  old  and  loved  it,  he  built  the  new 
upon  it.  He  did  not  put  the  new  and  the  old 
as  such  into  opposition.  Rather  he  would  have 
had  the  old  become  new.  He  recognized  that 
there  must  be  large  changes;  against  some  ex- 
crescences, like  legalism,  he  waged  open  war;  but 
he  strove  to  carry  the  Old  Testament  religion  in 
its  essence  on  to  its  consummation,  to  deepen  it, 
to  individualize,  spiritualize  and  give  it  warmth, 
to  make  it  positive  and  universal.  He  never 
admitted  that  his  spirit  was  alien  to  the  spirit 
of  the  Old  Testament,  and  died  because  he  still 
claimed  to  be  the  Messiah  of  the  Jews.  "He 
was  the  boldest  of  reformers  and  the  finest  t3^e 
of  conservative''  at  the  same  time. 

In  an  age  when  men  thought  of  nothing  but 
precepts  and  external  duties  and  refined  upon 
them  beyond  endurance,  Jesus  steadfastly  dealt 
with  the  inner  man,  and  with  great  principles  of 
life  and  conduct.  He  might  have  started  a  hun- 
dred useful  individual  reforms  in  Palestine,  but 
he  refused  to  be  turned  aside  from  his  great  work 
of  recreating  men,  and  thus  making  a  new  world. 


l82  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

This  fundamental  business  was  his  one  great 
reform.  He  would  not  be  entangled  in  the  details 
of  politics,  nor  would  he  define  narrowly  the  ap- 
plications of  his  principles  to  the  minor  ajffairs 
of  life.  He  left  his  teaching  flexible,  living,  ever 
adaptable  to  new  conditions,  not  tied  to  his  age, 
which  would  soon  pass  away.  He  did  this  not 
so  much  with  an  eye  to  the  future,  however,  as 
because  he  prized  so  highly  men's  spiritual  in- 
dependence, the  value  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 
self-education  involved  in  applying  these  inner 
principles  to  the  details  and  exigencies  of  daily 
living.  This  one  thing  evinces  a  penetration, 
sagacity  and  largeness  of  mind  which  make 
Jesus  the  supreme  guide  in  the  realm  of  religion 
and  morals.  The  result  of  it  has  been  that  the 
men  of  every  age  have  come  to  Jesus  with  their 
deepest  problems,  and  have  received  an  answer 
so  profound  and  apt  that  it  has  seemed  as  if  he 
spoke  to  them  alone. 

Possibly  the  finest  illustration  of  Jesus'  intellec- 
tual and  moral  poise  is  seen  in  his  exquisite  sense 
of  proportion  in  the  realm  of  truth,  his  genius 
for  putting  first  things  first,  for  bringing  order 
out   of   moral   confusion   and    thus   substituting 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  183 

light  for  darkness.  His  placing  of  religion  and 
morals  on  a  par  and  yet  religion  first,  his  balance 
between  the  individual  and  society,  his  equilib- 
rium of  the  active  and  passive  virtues,  his  com- 
bination of  self-renunciation  and  a  practical  life 
in  the  world,  are  not  only  evidences  of  the  high- 
est wisdom,  but  are  the  richest  blessings  which  the 
world  has  ever  received  from  a  teacher's  lips. 

Jesus'  wisdom  may  be  viewed  too  as  insight. 
He  seemed  to  see  with  perfect  clearness  into  every 
situation,  but  especially  into  the  soul  of  man. 
He  is  a  greater  "knower  of  the  hiunan  heart'* 
than  ever  Shakespeare  was.  With  unerring  glance 
he  analyzes  the  hidden  springs  of  motive  and 
reports  his  analysis  in  such  simple  terms  that 
men  in  all  ages  recognize  in  it  a  moral  photograph 
of  themselves.  As  John  says,  he  knew  what  was 
in  man.  Indeed,  he  was  the  first  discoverer  of 
the  infinite  value  and  dignity  of  the  human  soul, 
of  the  common  man,  of  the  individual.  So  he 
began,  as  no  other  reformer  before  him  had  ever 
begun,  with  the  common  man.  He  was  a  com- 
mon man  himself.  He  knew,  sympathized  with 
and  prized  the  common  man.  He  made  common 
men  the  leaders  of  his  new  movement.    He  loved 


184  THE  MAN  OP  NAZARETH 

the  crowds.  His  one  great  method  was  to  come 
into  touch  with  just  as  many  people  as  he  pos- 
sibly could,  and  pour  himself  into  them.  He 
had  the  utmost  faith  in  what  men  might  become 
in  fellowship  with  his  Father  and  theirs.  He 
therefore  dared  to  try  to  attract  them  with  a 
spiritual  kingdom  and  to  use  spiritual  means  in 
so  doing.  He  trusted  everything  at  last  to  an 
appeal  to  reality  and  the  deepest  realities.  This 
was  an  original  and  amazing  venture,  which 
could  only  prove  its  wisdom  by  its  success.  But 
it  did  succeed;  it  has  succeeded.  The  world  in 
our  own  lifetime,  however,  is  only  just  waking 
up  to  its  full  significance,  and  now  only  beginning 
to  give  Jesus'  experiment  its  full  leeway.  We 
agree  now  that  men  are  infinitely  valuable,  that 
successful  movements  must  grow  from  the  people 
up,  that  spiritual  means  are  the  only  really  effect- 
ive ones,  and  that,  if  the  world  is  to  be  saved  at 
all,  it  must  be  saved  in  Jesus'  way. 

It  is  simply  of  a  piece  with  the  foregoing,  that 
Jesus  had  a  wonderful  way  of  seeing  the  central 
point  in  every  problem,  of  cutting  the  Gordian 
knot  of  every  perplexity,  of  answering  questions 
in  a  way  which  left  the  old  debate  behind  and 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  iSg 

brought  men  out  into  the  heavenly  light  of  a 
higher  world,  and  of  threading  his  way  through 
the  mazes  and  complexities  of  his  historical  situa- 
tion with  a  sureness  which  confounded  his  con- 
temporaries.^ 

Jesus'  wisdom  was  wholly  practical;  nothing 
abstract,  speculative,  dialectic  here.  Simplicity 
and  directness  were  his  method.  He  built  no 
lofty  pyramid  of  logic,  nor  did  he  even  think  of 
attempting  a  system.  Such  things  were  entirely 
foreign  to  his  mind.  Rather  he  spoke  out  of 
his  experience  of  blessing  straight  to  the  hearts 
of  men,  and  this,  though  unmeditated,  was  the 
highest  art.  Of  all  the  world's  greatest  teachers, 
Jesus  alone  spoke  so  that  the  common  people 
not  only  understood  him,  but  were  delighted 
with  him.  Not  even  Paul  can  claim  an  equality 
with  him  here.  He  told  men  what  he  knew  and 
it  had  a  wonderful  self-evidencing  quality.  It 
gave  an  impression  of  reality,  which,  twenty 
centuries  afterwards,  clings  to  his  words  and 
gives  them  perennial  freshness  and  power.     He 

^No  illustration  of  this  is  more  comprehensive  than  the  ac- 
count of  the  Temptation.  His  moral  insight  in  detecting  what 
was  wrong  in  each  subtle  proposition  was  incomparably  delicate 
and  keen. 


l86  TEE  MAN  or  NAZARETH 

filled  the  world  with  a  new  and  immediate  sense 
of  God,  which  it  has  never  since  lost.  "He 
brought,  as  it  were,  the  perfume  of  another  and 
higher  sphere  in  his  garments,  and  it  floated  out 
upon  the  universal  air."  In  the  simplest,  most 
direct  way,  he  just  told  men  how  to  live,  and  the 
loveliest  and  noblest  characters  of  history  have 
been  those  who  have  come  the  nearest  to  being 
and  doing  just  what  he  said.  He  was  a  new 
type  of  man,  and  created  a  new  type  of  humanity. 
His  astuteness  consisted  largely  in  doing  the 
simplest  thing,  the  thing  which  lay  so  near  his 
hand,  that  most  men  would  have  overlooked  it. 
He  had  new  truth.  Most  other  men  in  his  posi- 
tion would  have  labored  to  create  new  terms  to 
express  it,  and  so  would  have  had  a  futile,  clumsy 
and  unmeaning  apparatus  with  no  connection 
with  the  past  and  no  appeal  to  the  present.  But 
such  a  method  probably  never  occurred  to  Jesus. 
He  found  religious  concepts  already  in  use  like 
Kingdom  of  God,  Messiah,  Father  (for  God)  and 
salvation.  He  seized  upon  these,  purified  and  ele- 
vated them,  freed  them  from  their  errors  and 
limitations,  and  made  them  speak  a  new  and 
higher  message  to  men.    This  was  the  only  sen- 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  187 

Bible  thing  to  do;  it  reveals  the  instinct  of  the 
practical  man.  The  history  of  this  process, 
traced  in  former  chapters,  shows  in  Jesus  a 
genius,  a  breadth,  a  patience,  and  an  ability  in 
instilling  new  conceptions,  which  command  the 
profoundest  admiration. 

Though  Jesus  had  some  tearing  down  to  do, 
he  did  not  delight  in  it,  as  do  so  many  men  with 
new  ideas.  Rather,  his  teaching  and  work  were 
decidedly  positive  and  constructive.  He  was  one 
of  the  great  builders.  He  laid  foundations  so 
broad  and  deep  that  his  church  has  never  needed 
to  be  anxious  about  their  solidity  and  sufficiency. 
To  be  sure,  he  weakened  the  walls  of  Judaism, 
but,  when  the  Jewish  state  fell  in  ruins,  his  own 
edifice  already  shone  forth  in  beauty  and  strength. 
But  possibly  the  finest  illustration  of  his  practical 
wisdom  was  his  refusal  to  appeal  to  authority, 
to  tradition,  or  even  to  lay  final  stress  on  the 
Old  Testament  scripture.  He  preferred  to  ad- 
dress himself  directly  to  the  conscience,  the  reason 
and  the  will.  He  evoked  all  the  nobler  emotions 
and  rallied  them  on  his  side.  Men  felt  that  here 
was  a  new  method,  the  appeal  to  truth,  to  com- 
mon sense,  to  reality.    It  was  Jesus'  way.    It  is 


l88  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

sincere.  It  is  effective.  It  is  ultimate.  If  it 
does  not  finally  succeed,  nothing  can. 

In  conclusion  we  may  say,  that  whether  we 
regard  the  character,  the  substance  or  the  method 
of  his  wisdom,  the  world  is  still  sitting  at  the 
Great  Teacher's  feet. 

Power.  Rising  from  a  fresh  and  intimate 
study  of  the  gospels,  we  must  say  that,  after  all, 
the  dominant  impression  left  by  the  portrait  of 
Jesus  is  that  of  power,  of  the  greatness  and  force 
of  his  personality.  And  this  same  feeling  is  ex- 
pressed by  Tennyson's  famous  line,  "Strong  Son 
of  God,  Immortal  Love,"  and  by  Mark's  first 
comment  on  Jesus,  "He  taught  as  one  who  had 
authority."  Power  is  the  constant  impression 
made  by  him  on  the  men  of  his  time;  on  John  the 
Baptist,  on  his  disciples,  on  the  multitudes,  on  his 
foes,  on  the  Sanhedrin,  on  Pilate.  Whatever  his  at- 
titude towards  Jesus  might  be,  there  was  no  one 
who  was  not  deeply  conscious  of  the  vigor  of  his 
character.  To  the  Galilean  centurion,  "he  seemed 
like  a  commander  who  was  born  to  be  obeyed." 
The  Gadarene  felt  that  he  was  in  the  presence 
of  one  who  could  order  out  a  legion  of  demons. 
He  stirred  the  whole  nation  to  the  bottom,  and 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  189 

the  chief  priests  themselves  confessed  that  he 
was  like  to  turn  them  out. 

And  Jesus  was  fully  conscious  of  his  power 
from  the  very  beginning  of  his  ministry.  He 
knew  that  he  had  in  himself  resources  more  than 
sufficient  for  his  great  task.  All  the  solicita- 
tions in  the  Temptation  presuppose  his  power; 
the  last  one  even  implies  his  ability  to  conquer  the 
entire  world.  Jesus  does  not  deny  that  he  can 
do  these  things,  but  he  sees  that  they  would 
involve  misuse  of  power,  and  so  refuses  to  engage 
in  them.  The  personal  moral  problem  for  Jesus 
was  largely  one  of  self-restraint,  of  too  much 
energy  rather  than  too  little.  Note  the  names 
of  strength  and  aggressiveness  he  gives  his  dis- 
ciples; he  calls  Simon,  the  Rock,  and  James  and 
John,  Sons  of  Thunder.  He  made  men  strong. 
He  had  power  to  give  away. 

Jesus  seems  to  have  had  perfect  physical 
health.  He  was  capable  of  long  continued,  stren- 
uous labor,  a  kind  of  work,  too,  which  called  for 
large  expenditures  of  emotion  and  sympathy  and 
sapped  the  nervous  force.  Yet  he  was  never  ill 
and  rarely  tired.  All  he  ever  needed  was  a  night's 
rest.     With  unimpaired  energy  he  pressed   the 


190  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

battle  to  the  very  end.  His  body  was  of  that 
noblest  t3^e,  which  unites  all  the  more  delicate 
and  finer  nervous  mechanism  with  glorious  phys- 
ical strength.  So  he  was  a  perfectly  normal 
man,  a  man  almost  disconcertingly  natural.  He 
had  the  sanguine,  fiery  temperament,  was  en- 
thusiastic, brave  and  hopeful.  In  his  inmost  soul 
welled  a  deep  spring  of  joy.  He  had  a  sense  of 
humor.  He  loved  children  and  liked  to  watch 
their  games.  He  was  capable  of  a  sternness  of 
indignation  against  hypocrisy  and  wrong,  which 
sometimes  flared  forth  to  the  discomfiture  of  his 
foes.  Yet  all  was  under  the  control  of  the  strong 
man.  Irritability  is  the  vice  of  saints  and  heroes, 
but  Jesus  seems  to  have  been  calmly  superior  to 
the  little  vexations  which  so  frequently  call  forth 
an  exhibition  of  the  weaknesses  of  high-strung 
spiritual  men.  He  seems  to  have  had  not  the 
slightest  trace  of  our  modem  neurasthenia.  It 
is  this  self-mastery  which  peculiarly  impressed 
his  disciples.  Matthew  speaks  of  his  quietness 
of  demeanor  and  his  gracious  patience  (Matthew 
12:  19,  20);  Paul  of  the  mildness  and  gentleness 
of  Christ,  his  "sweet  reasonableness,''  as  Matthew 
Arnold  would  say  (2  Cor.  10:  i);  Peter  of  his 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  I9I 

composure  and  faith  in  the  midst  of  suffering 
and  his  silence  under  insult  (i  Pet.  2:  23).  Jesus 
had  a  great,  energetic,  warm,  aggressive  nature, 
but  he  never  let  it  carry  him  beyond  the  bounds 
set  by  love  and  self-respect. 

He  overflowed  with  vitality.  He  was  a  spring- 
ing fountain  of  life  and  power.  The  sick  were 
healed  by  his  touch  or  even  by  his  word  of  com- 
mand. The  sinful  and  discouraged  went  from 
his  presence  with  a  new  purity  and  hope.  In 
him,  says  John,  was  life.  He  came  that  men 
might  have  life  and  have  it  more  abundantly.  He 
was  so  rich  in  spiritual  goods  that  he  gave  with- 
out thought,  as  it  were,  extravagantly.  As  in 
the  case  of  all  strong  men,  the  multitudes  gath- 
ered about  him,  hung  on  him,  listened  spellbound 
to  his  words,  sought  to  share  his  wonderful 
energy. 

Jesus  strikes  us  as  a  man  of  unlimited  and 
mighty  resources.  He  never  seemed  at  a  loss. 
He  always  knew  what  he  would  do  (John  6:  6). 
He  dominated  every  scene.  The  shrewdest  lead- 
ers of  his  nation  foimd  their  most  adroit  schemes 
to  entrap  him  as  ineffectual  as  the  green  withes 
with  which  his  foes  tried  to  bind  Samson.    He 


192  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

had  a  wisdom  of  simplicity  and  expedients  of 
love  in  his  heart,  of  which  worldly  men  had 
never  dreamed.  Angry  foes,  with  murder  in  their 
eyes,  might  surround  him,  but  there  was  such 
authority  in  his  very  mien  that  they  instinctively 
made  a  way  for  him  through  their  ranks,  and 
dared  not  lay  a  hand  upon  him.^  The  vicissi- 
tudes of  his  career  were  many  and  keenly  felt, 
but  he  mastered  every  situation  and  solved  every 
problem  from  the  viewpoint  of  a  higher  sphere 
than  this.  Even  when  a  defenceless  prisoner 
before  the  Sanhedrin  and  Pilate,  he  is  still  the 
central  figure,  calm  and  undismayed.  We  feel 
that,  after  all,  the  silent  sufferer  is  supreme. 
Though  they  seem  to  be  judging  him,  he  in 
reality  is  judging  them  and  they  seem  to  mistrust 
it.  In  condemning  him,  they  are  themselves 
condemned,  and  all  the  ages  affirm  the  sentence. 
It  is  not  strange  that  this  man  of  power  should 
add  to  his  certainty,  firmness  and  consistent 
bravery  a  striking  personal  dignity,  a  sort  of 
kingly  bearing.  There  was  no  pride  in  it.  He 
never  acted  a  part.    There  was  not  the  slightest 

*  Compare  the  similar  escapes  of  the  missionary  Paton  from 
the  camiibals  of  the  New  Hebrides. 


THE  CHARACTER   OF  JESUS  I93 

suspicion  of  pretension  to  a  position  which  did 
not  really  belong  to  him.  There  was  no  service 
too  lowly  for  him  to  render.  He  had  none  of 
the  airs  of  the  great,  or  any  aloofness  or  aus- 
terity, yet  his  self-respect  was  perfect.  It  was  the 
wholly  natural  dignity  of  true  greatness,  of  simple 
integrity,  of  the  seriousness  of  the  highest  purpose. 
It  probably  never  occurred  even  to  any  of  his 
enemies  to  trifle  with  him,  till  the  rude  underlings 
smote  and  mocked  him  at  his  trial.  We  instinc- 
tively feel  that  none  of  his  disciples  ever  dared 
to  take  liberties  with  him.  The  only  approach 
to  it  occurred  when  rash  Peter  attempted  to  dis- 
suade him  from  going  to  the  cross,  and  we  all 
know  how  that  resulted. 

In  other  words,  he  was  Lord.  This,  of  course, 
was  involved  in  his  Messiahship  and,  especially, 
in  his  work  as  Founder  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
And  he  was  Lord  from  the  first.  John  the  Bap- 
tist intuitively  felt  his  superiority  and  yielded 
to  his  preference  at  the  baptism.  The  bartering 
crowd  in  the  Temple  owned  his  authority  and 
fled  at  his  gesture.  The  sons  of  Zebedee  left 
their  nets  to  follow  him.  He  was  always  Master. 
No  disciple  ever  questioned  it  for  a  moment,  and 


194  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

Jesus  never  waived  his  prerogative.  He  naturally 
and  easily  took  and  held  the  position.  He  never 
consulted  with  any  of  his  disciples  about  his  plans 
or  methods.  He  never  asked  anybody's  advice. 
He  initiated  all  new  movements  on  his  own  re- 
sponsibility. He  simply  led  the  way  and  the 
disciples  followed  in  his  steps.  He  commanded 
and  they  obeyed.  He  called  himself  Lord  and 
King  and  they  accepted  him  as  such.* 

So  he  was  the  Leader,  the  absolute  leader,  and 
yet  so  unselfish,  so  fair,  so  sympathetic,  so  pa- 
tient, so  inspiring  that  no  leader  has  ever  since 
equalled  him.  He  bound  men  to  him  with  the 
bonds  of  love.  In  spite  of  disappointment,  mis- 
understanding, fiercest  opposition,  most  dreadful 
danger,  he  roused  in  them  a  reverence,  an  adora- 
tion, a  deathless  affection,  a  devotion  to  his  per- 
son, which  did  not  stop  at  the  sacrifice  of  life  it- 
self. Even  today,  twenty  centuries  after  his  death, 
there  is  no  single  individual,  though  he  be  the 

*  This  independence  of  Jesus  had  its  root  not  in  pride,  but  in 
his  certainty  of  God  and  his  absolute  trust  in  him.  He  did  not 
consult  men  but  his  Father,  and  when  he  rose  from  prayer,  every- 
thing had  been  decided.  The  finest  independence  of  feeling  and 
action  is  the  fruit  of  a  hfe  of  prayerful  humility.  Cf.  Robertson, 
Sermons,  First  Series,  pp.  27of. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  I95 

ruler  of  an  empire,  who  could  summon  so  great  a 
host  of  ardent  followers,  ready  for  any  sacrifice, 
as  could  Jesus.  He  was  the  greatest  of  leaders 
for  he  was  the  supreme  inspirer  of  men.  He 
was  the  supreme  inspirer  of  men,  because  he,  the 
greatest  of  them  all,  unreservedly  gave  himself 
for  them,  even  to  the  death  of  the  cross.  This 
made  him  the  unrivalled  Captain  of  the  hosts  of 
righteousness,  yesterday,  today  and  forever. 

The  force  of  this  Personality,  as  we  have 
shown,  has  crossed  all  the  oceans  and  streams 
down  through  all  the  centuries.  How  mighty  must 
have  been  the  power  resident  in  him,  who  could 
create  the  initial  impulse  and  supply  the  con- 
tinuous energy  for  such  a  movement  in  our 
race! 

Antitheses.  Nothing  is  more  impressive  than 
the  opposites  in  Jesus,  except  the  nice  equipoise 
which  they  always  maintain.  It  is  an  iridescent 
character;  you  get  a  new  and  changing  view  from 
every  different  angle,  and  yet  all  is  ever  beautiful 
and  harmonious.  Most  of  these  usually  and- 
thetic  qualities  have  already  been  discussed,  but 
we  make  bold  to  catalogue  the  most  prominent 
of  them  at  some  risk  of  repetition,  lest  any  reader 


196  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

should  fail  to  appreciate  this  noteworthy  feature 
of  the  personality  of  Jesus. 

He  was  a  thorough  Jew,  had  never  known 
aught  but  Jewish  influences,  yet  he  was  a  Greek 
in  his  love  of  nature  and  his  joy  in  life  and  an 
American  in  the  strenuosity  of  his  work  and  the 
practical  cast  of  his  mind.  He  was  a  child  of  his 
age,  and  yet  has  become  the  leader  of  every  age. 

He  was  a  wonderful  combination  of  the  active 
and  the  passive  virtues,  the  man  of  love  who 
could  not  and  would  not  avoid  conflict,  the 
Prince  of  Peace,  who  died  bitterly  hated  by  his 
many  foes.  In  fact,  he  seemed  to  unite  in  himself 
the  noblest  traits  of  manhood  and  womanhood. 
He  was  strong  without  a  trace  of  violence,  and 
gentle  without  a  trace  of  weakness.  Love  alone 
can  explain  this. 

In  him  we  find  an  extraordinary  union  of  the 
contemplative  and  the  active.  He  loved  the 
crowd  and  the  thronged  street,  yet  he  often  stole 
away  to  the  mountain  to  be  alone  with  himself 
and  God.  He  courted  popularity,  thrust  himself 
on  the  attention  of  men,  compelled  them  to  hear 
his  message,  but,  unlike  Paul,  was  strangely  reti- 
cent about  his  inner  experience  and  men  felt  that 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  I97 

he  died  with  secrets  undisclosed.  He  was  con- 
scious of  a  fullness  of  life  and  a  wealth  of  power, 
and  yet  his  prayerfulness  shows  a  sense  of  need 
which  only  God  could  supply.  There  was  a 
secret  life  behind  the  scenes  which  is  necessary 
to  explain  the  Jesus  whom  the  world  knows. 

He  was  refined  and  dignified,  yet  never  cold 
and  haughty.  He  was  enthusiastic  and  sym- 
pathetic, yet  always  wise.  He  was  deeply  spiri- 
tual, but  he  was  no  fanatic,  deadly  in  earnest  in 
his  hatred  of  sin,  but  no  ascetic. 

He  made  plans,  looked  out  into  the  future, 
but  within  the  outlines  of  his  plans,  he  was  a 
thorough-going  opportunist.  He  showed  the  most 
remarkable  breadth  of  conception,  and  yet  be- 
stowed the  utmost  attention  on  details.  He  talked 
with  each  casual  inquirer  as  though  that  were  his 
one  business  in  life.  Never  was  there  a  busier 
man,  and  yet  he  always  had  time. 

No  man  ever  gave  himself  more  unreservedly 
to  his  career,  and  yet  he  showed  a  wonderful 
freedom  from  anxiety  about  the  outcome.  He 
understood  how  to  wait,  but  he  never  hesitated. 
He  knew  his  hour  with  unerring  certainty  and, 
when  it  came,  he  acted  with  amazing  decisiveness. 


198  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

He  was  a  teacher,  a  preacher,  a  poet,  but  at 
the  same  time  the  most  practical  of  empire 
builders. 

He  joined  the  authority  of  Lordship  with  the 
most  genuine  humility,  the  intrepid  self-reliance 
of  God's  Anointed  with  implicit  obedience  to  his 
Father. 

His  heart  responded  to  all  life's  innocent 
pleasures,  his  joy  was  real  and  deep,  yet  he  was 
the  man  of  sorrows,  the  familiar  friend  of  grief. 
He  knew  no  antithesis  between  self-realization 
and  self-denial.  He  found  himself  in  self -giving. 
He  grew  stronger  in  spirit  the  more  fully  he  de- 
voted himself  to  others'  good. 

He  was  a  natural  conservative,  yet  a  true  pro- 
gressive, and  in  many  matters  such  a  radical 
that  the  world  has  not  yet  caught  up  with  him. 
He  was  an  individualist  of  the  most  pronounced 
type,  and  yet  he  preached  a  social  conception, 
the  kingdom  of  God,  as  his  highest  ideal. 

He  put  an  almost  equal  emphasis  on  ethics 
and  religion.  He  introduced  a  new  and  freer 
religion  with  a  deeper  and  sterner  morality.  He 
preached  both  righteousness  and  love  with  the 
same  insistence.    His  love  for  sinners  was  genuine 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  I99 

and  amazing,  yet  he  had  no  illusions  about  them 
and  never  hinted  the  slightest  excuse  for  their 
sin. 

Though  he  was  unschooled,  the  world  has  gone 
to  school  to  him,  and  that  in  the  very  highest 
studies.  Though  a  common  man,  he  has  im- 
pressed the  world  as  inexpressibly  and  uniquely 
great.  ''He  seems  to  include  and  bring  to  perfec- 
tion in  himself  every  conceivable  type  of  goodness.'* 
*'The  white  light  in  him  gathers  up  all  the  split 
and  partial  colors  of  our  little  spectrums."  "All 
these  opposites  are  only  beams  from  the  diamond 
of  his  soul,"  and  the  center  of  the  diamond  was 
the  divine  spirit  that  dwelt  in  him. 

These  varied  and  almost  contrary  qualities 
exactly  fit  Jesus  to  be  the  moral  and  spiritual 
leader  of  our  race.  They  make  him  a  sort  of 
universal  man.  Each  sex,  each  time  of  life,  every 
age,  every  nation  and  every  class  finds  in  him 
something  strangely  familiar  and  genial,  some- 
thing to  admire  and  love.  The  most  opposite 
sects  claim  him  with  equal  enthusiasm,  and  the 
most  antipathetic  men  and  women  join  in  a  com- 
mon devotion  to  his  person.  The  new  world-life 
of  our  age,  a  united  humanity  with  its  new  needs, 


200  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

can  discover  in  no  other  the  diversity  and  uni- 
versality of  character  which  it  demands,  and 
can  see  in  none  but  Jesus  its  Lord  and  Savior. 

The  most  difficult  ethical  achievement  is  the 
maintenance  of  the  moral  balance  in  a  many- 
sided  personality,  yet  Jesus  seems  to  have  at- 
tained success  at  this  point  with  perfect  ease. 
With  all  these  antithetic  qualities,  he  never  seems 
to  be  a  complicated  character,  but  always,  at 
first  view  and  indeed  in  the  last  analysis,  im- 
presses us  with  the  simplicity,  harmony  and 
unity  of  his  inner  life,  with  the  artlessness  of  his 
self-mastery,  and  the  naturalness  of  his  greatness.* 

Goodness.  There  is  a  so-called  goodness  that 
men  instinctively  hate.  All  the  satirists  have 
levelled  their  shafts  at  it.    The  more  virile  and 

*We  quote  Bushnell's  famous  paragraph  on  this  topic.  "Men 
undertake  to  be  spiritual  and  they  become  ascetic;  or,  endeavor- 
ing to  hold  a  liberal  view  of  the  comforts  and  pleasures  of  society, 
they  are  soon  buried  in  the  worid,  and  slaves  to  its  fashions;  or, 
holding  a  scrupulous  watch  to  keep  out  every  particular  sin, 
they  become  legal  and  fall  out  of  liberty;  or,  charmed  with  the 
noble  and  heavenly  liberty,  they  run  to  negligence  and  irrespon- 
sible living;  so  the  earnest  become  violent,  the  fervent  fanatical 
and  censorious,  the  gentle  waver,  the  firm  turn  bigots,  the  liberal 
grow  lax,  the  benevolent  ostentatious.  Poor  human  infirmity 
can  hold  nothing  steady.  When  the  pivot  of  righteousness  is 
broken,  the  scales  must  needs  slide  off  their  balance." 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  201 

practical  men  are,  the  more  they  despise  it.  But 
ridicule  grows  dumb  before  the  goodness  of  Jesus. 
His  peerless  character  somehow  never  excites 
jealousy  or  dislike.  Rather  it  is  winsome  and 
attractive.  The  bigger  the  man  is,  the  surer  he 
is  to  praise  Jesus.  We  feel  that,  to  oppose  Jesus 
is  to  judge  ourselves.  To  be  sure,  Jesus  had 
enemies,  but  they  hated  him  because  he  antago- 
nized their  sins  and  interfered  with  their  financial 
and  popular  influence.  They  objected  to  him 
not  because  he  was  too  good,  but  because,  think- 
ing themselves  the  patterns  of  piety  and  the 
bulwarks  of  the  state,  they  considered  him  the 
ally  of  irreligion  and  disorder.  Some  men  today 
will  take  the  same  attitude  towards  Jesus  for  the 
same  reason.  He  stands  in  their  way.  But,  by 
their  action,  they  only  reveal  to  their  fellows 
the  smallness  of  their  thoughts  and  the  baseness 
of  their  hearts.  The  world  has  about  made  up 
its  mind  that  Jesus  is  right. 

Men  like  the  perfect  honesty  of  Jesus.  He 
was  simple  as  a  child.  He  was  grounded  in  truth. 
He  was  sound  to  the  very  core.  He  was  abso- 
lutely genuine.  He  had  a  passion  for  righteous- 
ness and  reality,  a  consuming  hatred  of  artifi- 


202  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

ciality  and  hypocrisy,  a  sternness  against  evil  which 
is  never  obscured  by  his  love  for  sinners.  His 
character  gives  the  impression  of  a  singular  and 
pellucid  purity,  no  mixture  of  low  with  high 
motives,  some  form  of  selfishness  pulling  one 
way  and  love  or  duty  pulling  the  other.  In  this 
man  there  is  not  a  single  false  note,  no  morbid- 
ness, no  vanity,  no  posing,  no  pretence,  no  false 
humility,  no  religious  extravagance,  no  fanaticism 
or  asceticism,  no  attempt  to  seem  other  than 
he  was.  In  matters  of  duty,  he  never  dreamed 
of  compromise  to  avoid  conflict.  He  thought  it 
better  to  die  than  to  sin,  and  this  principle  of 
his  was  put  to  a  fiery  test,  when,  in  the  question 
of  the  tribute  money,  he  refused  to  equivocate 
with  full  knowledge  of  the  consequences  and  threw 
away  his  life.  He  could  endure  crucifixion,  but 
he  could  not  shade  the  truth  a  single  particle. 
This  perfect  sincerity  is  the  secret  of  the  spon- 
taneity and  naturalness  of  his  life,  of  the  straight- 
forwardness of  his  course,  of  his  fairness  and 
candor  in  debate,  of  his  constant  appeal  to  reality, 
and  gives  him  the  charm  which  his  disciples  felt, 
when  they  said  that  he  was  full  of  grace  and 
truth. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  203 

His  goodness  was  not  only  founded  on  the  bed- 
rock of  honesty,  but  was  utterly  unselfish.  His 
one  object  in  life  was  to  bring  men  into  the  bless- 
ing of  loving  obedience  to  the  Father's  will. 
This  purpose  of  love  ruled  supreme,  unrivalled  by 
a  thought  of  personal  advantage  or  comfort  or 
the  praise  of  men.  He  held  to  this  high  aim  in 
spite  of  all  temptations  to  become  involved  in 
other  matters,  in  spite  of  all  the  vicissitudes  and 
disappointments  of  a  very  varied  career,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  he  discovered  by  and  by  that  it 
led  straight  to  the  cross.  His  bold  earnestness 
in  his  great  enterprise  made  him  deaf  to  all  the 
allurements  of  self-seeking  and  gives  him  the  love 
of  all  those  who  admire  the  brave  and  the  true. 

The  goodness  of  Jesus  attracts  men  because  we 
feel  that  he  dealt  honestly  with  himself,  that  he 
practised  what  he  preached,  that  his  high  ideals 
and  stern  demands  made  on  others  had  their 
first  application  to  his  own  life,  that  he  was  more 
exacting  with  himself  than  with  any  of  his  hearers. 
With  this  was  naturally  joined  a  sort  of  fairness 
in  his  treatment  of  sinners,  a  willingness  to  look 
at  the  matter  from  their  point  of  view,  a  kindly 
appreciation  of  the  first  efforts  to  struggle  up- 


204  THE  MAN   OF  NAZARETH 

ward,  however  clumsy  and  feeble,  a  helpful  hand 
stretched  out  gladly  to  aid  every  aspiration 
toward  goodness.  Matthew  tells  us  that  it  was 
Jesus'  custom  to  do  his  best  for  bruised  reeds  and 
not  to  throw  them  away  as  useless,  to  conserve 
the  little  heat  left  in  the  smoking  wick  till  he 
could  fan  it  again  into  flame.  Such  was  the 
patience  and  tenderness  of  the  Savior.  There 
was  nothing  exclusive  or  narrow,  then,  about 
his  goodness.  Like  the  sunshine  and  the  rain, 
it  was  for  all.  His  great  heart  took  in  the  weak- 
est and  the  strongest,  without  any  distinction 
whatever.  Yet  he  never  for  a  moment  in  false 
mercy  let  down  the  high  standards  of  right- 
eousness which  he  came  to  establish  for  man- 
kind. 

All  this  was  possible  because  Jesus  himself 
was  involved  in  the  moral  struggle.  He  was 
tempted  like  as  we  are.  Though  he  never  sinned, 
his  goodness  grew  deeper  and  richer  year  by  year, 
and  came  at  last  to  its  finest  maturity.  It  was 
therefore  a  real  attainment,  a  real  victory.  If 
it  had  not  been  so,  his  goodness  would  belong, 
as  it  were,  to  another  sphere  external  to  us,  he 
would  be  like  the  cold  marble,  icily  faultless,  a 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  20$ 

perfect  character  fitted  to  chill  us  into  discourage- 
ment and  despair.  But  fighting  our  fight  as  he 
did,  struggling  with  our  foes  on  the  same  field 
where  we  find  ourselves,  and  finally  conquering 
with  the  weapons  which  we  must  use,  he  is  to 
us  the  pioneer  who  leads  us  on,  the  victor  who 
cheers  us  in  the  daily  struggle,  the  Light  and 
Hope  of  the  World.  He  makes  those  who  trust 
and  follow  him  believe  that,  although  they  start 
at  a  lower  level  than  he,  they  will  win  as  he 
did. 

Greatness.  It  seems  almost  unnecessary  to 
give  even  a  paragraph  to  the  Greatness  of  Jesus. 
All  that  has  been  written  combines  to  give  us 
an  overwhelming  impression  of  it.  Many  great 
men  are  great  in  some  one  quality  or  aptitude, 
but  the  greatest  men  are  great  in  more  ways  than 
one.  So  it  was  with  Jesus.  Among  men  he 
ranks  as  the  greatest  Character,  the  greatest 
Teacher,  the  greatest  Organizer  of  righteousness, 
the  greatest  spiritual  Inspirer  and  Leader  of  man- 
kind. Among  the  noblest  of  his  brethren  he  rises 
like  Mount  Everest  in  the  Himalayas,  supreme, 
unrivalled,  alone. 

Whether  we  consider  the  disadvantages  of  his 


2o6  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

birth  and  environment  compared  with  the  vast- 
ness  and  permanence  of  his  influence,  the  unique- 
ness of  his  spiritual  experience,  his  mastery  and 
originaKty  in  the  sphere  of  religion  and  ethics, 
his  preeminence  as  the  Leader  of  humanity  in 
purity  and  love,  the  fruitfulness  of  his  thought 
and  the  inspiration  of  his  personality  for  the 
uplifting  and  continuous  progress  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  race,  his  founding  and  perpetual 
revitalizing  of  the  kingdom  of  Gk)d,  or  the  per- 
fection of  his  personal  character,  we  must  all 
agree  that  in  Jesus  we  see  the  moral  and  spiritual 
Lord  and  Savior  of  mankind. 

Loneliness.  Jesus,  however,  paid  the  penalty 
of  his  supreme  greatness  by  a  supreme  loneliness. 
Though  he  did  his  very  best,  he  could  not  avoid 
being  misapprehended.  His  parents  thought 
him  a  strange  child,  and  at  the  height  of  his 
popularity  his  mother  and  relatives  came  to  seize 
him  because  they  had  concluded  that  he  had 
gone  crazy.  His  own  brothers  looked  on  him  as 
an  impractical  dreamer.  Neither  the  leaders 
nor  the  common  people  ever  really  comprehended 
his  spiritual  purposes,  and  this  was  only  less  true 
of  his  disciples.    "Those  who  understood  him  best 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  207 

understood  him  only  half."  ^  And  we  now  see 
that  it  could  not  have  been  otherwise.  In  many 
respects,  Jesus  was  at  least  twenty  centuries  ahead 
of  his  time.  He  belonged  to  that  future  age  of 
spiritual  glory  of  which  he  so  often  spoke.  As  he 
passed  through  the  world  in  which  he  lived,  he  must 
have  felt  himself,  in  the  last  analysis,  a  stranger. 
Finally,  he  found  himself  deserted,  first  by  the 
people,  who  had  once  followed  him  with  a  super- 
ficial enthusiasm,  and  then  by  his  own  disciples. 
One  of  his  dearest  friends  denied  that  he  ever 
knew  him,  and  he  was  openly  rejected  and  cruci- 
fied by  the  leaders  of  the  nation  which  he  came 
to  save.  Was  there  ever  sorrow  like  this  sorrow, 
a  cup  of  tragic  grief  more  bitter  than  this?  If 
Jesus  had  been  by  instinct  a  recluse  or  one  of 
those  stern,  cold  characters  who  prefer  to  walk 
alone,  this  spiritual  isolation  could  have  been 
more  easily  borne.  But  Jesus  was  the  very 
friendliest  of  men,  he  had  a  great,  sensitive  heart, 
he  lived  in  the  simshine  of  love.    To  such  a  man, 

*  This  view  of  the  matter  suggests  that,  instead  of  giving  us  an 
exaggerated  picture,  the  evangelists  never  did  Jesus  justice.  In 
his  case  it  is  probably  literally  true  that  the  half  was  never  told. 
Why  should  we  not  understand  Jesus  better  than  the  men  of  his 
time?   Our  time  is  largely  the  resultant  of  his  life  and  teaching. 


2o8  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

profound  loneKness  must  have  been  the  keenest 
of  trials.  He  walked  among  men,  the  crowds 
pressed  upon  him,  he  journeyed  surrounded  by 
his  friends,  and  yet  he  was  alone.  He  was  cut 
off  from  the  sympathy  for  which  his  whole  nature 
cried  out,  and  which  was  indeed  necessary  to 
the  immediate  success  of  his  great  life  purpose. 
Here  is  the  real  pathos  of  this  wonderful  character, 
the  pathos  of  supreme  greatness  in  a  little  world. 

We  have  now  come  to  the  innermost  shrine 
of  this  personality,  that  sacred  sphere  of  reserve 
and  mystery  which  Jesus  could  not  reveal,  and 
even  if  we  knock,  we  cannot  enter.  "No  man 
knows  me  but  the  Father,"  said  Jesus  (Mat- 
thew ii:  27).  "He  has  a  name  written  which  no 
one  knows  but  he  himself"  (Rev.  19:  12).  In  this 
hidden  life,  Jesus  was  alone,  but  alone  with  God. 
This  is  his  Holy  of  Holies.  Here  is  the  treasure 
house  of  his  power,  and  the  fountain,  whence  flow 
the  streams  of  divine  salvation  to  all  the  world. 

This  unshared  and  solitary  elevation  of  charac- 
ter should  not  repel  men,  for,  after  all,  it  is  be- 
cause Jesus  is  above  us  that  he  can  help  us  up. 
It  is  because  he  is  stronger  than  we,  that  we  may 
flee  1:0  him  in  every  hour  of  need. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  FINALITY  OF  JESUS 

That  was  a  great  day  for  the  human  race, 
when  the  last  touches  were  put  upon  the  glorious 
Parthenon,  and  architecture  came  to  its  perfec- 
tion of  beauty.  That  was  a  great  day  when 
Raphael  completed  the  Sistine  Madonna  and 
painting  reached  its  highest  mark.  Those  were 
great  days  when  men  invented  the  steam  engine, 
the  telegraph,  the  electric  light  and  the  telephone. 

But  above  all  other  days  was  the  supreme  day 
when  at  last  the  Perfect  Man  appeared.^  Cicero 
in  his  Tusculan  Disputations  tells  us  that  the 
ancient  thinkers  often  discussed  what  sort  of 
man  the  just  man  would  be;  but  iiobody  dis- 
cusses that  now,  for  the  ideal  of  humanity  has 
been  revealed  in  Jesus.  The  wonderful  dreams 
of  the  world's  philosophies  and  religions  have 
come  true  at  last  in  the  Man  of  Nazareth.    All 

*For  extended  proof  of  the  moral  perfection  of  Jesus,  ses 
pp.  43-46. 

209 


2IO  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

their   prophecies,   longings   and   imaginings   find 
their  fulfilment  and  more  in  him. 

All  attempts  to  draw  a  rival  character  are 
hopeless  failures.  Nietzsche's  Superman  repels 
all  the  finer  feelings  of  mankind,  and  an  attempt 
at  its  realization  would  drown  civilization  in 
blood.  The  glory  of  the  Caesars  and  the  Na- 
poleons, the  Rothschilds  and  the  Vanderbilts 
fades.  Even  great  benefactors  of  the  human  race, 
like  Washington  and  Lincoln,  Jenner  and  Pas- 
teur, are  judged  and  honored  only  by  their  like- 
ness to  Jesus.  Even  those  who  are  not  his  fol- 
lowers find  in  him  the  norm  of  conduct.  John 
Stuart  Mill,  who  did  not  pretend  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian, says,  "Religion  cannot  be  said  to  have 
made  a  bad  choice  in  pitching  upon  Jesus  as 
the  ideal  representative  and  guide  of  humanity; 
nor  even  now  would  it  be  easy,  even  for  an  un- 
believer, to  find  a  better  translation  of  the  rule 
of  virtue  from  the  abstract  into  the  concrete 
than  the  endeavor  so  to  live  that  Christ  would 
approve  our  lives."  More  universally  than  we 
usually  think,  this  sentiment  has  become  an  es- 
sential of  the  mental  furnishing  of  the  non- 
christian   part   of   Christendom.     Jesus,   or   the 


THE  FINALITY  OF  JESUS  211 

more  generalized  Spirit  of  Christ,  is  really  the 
moral  standard  of  the  whole  Western  World, 
accepted  by  the  ordinary  man  as  unconsciously 
and  absolutely  as  the  air  or  the  sunlight.  It  is 
indisputably  the  cornerstone  of  Christian  civiliza- 
tion, "the  undying  root  of  all  that  is  best  in 
modern  Hfe." 

The  magnitude  of  this  fact  can  possibly  be  best 
appreciated  if  we  consider  what  the  loss  of  this 
ideal  would  mean,  if  indeed  such  loss  were  think- 
able. It  would  set  back  the  clock  of  spiritual 
progress  twenty  centuries.  It  would  plunge  the 
nations  into  moral  chaos  and  disaster.  It  would 
bring  a  universal  sense  of  an  overwhelming  and 
irreparable  world-calamity.  Nothing  can  be  imag- 
ined that  would  so  deeply  and  permanently  sad- 
den mankind.^ 

We  cannot,  however,  rest  the  finality  of  Jesus 
on  his  moral  perfection  alone,  though  this  is  and 
must  ever  be  the  starting  point.  We  may  con- 
ceive a  morally  perfect  man,  who  would  never  be 
known  beyond  the  limits  of  his  Nazareth.     All 

*  Compare  Romanes*  Thoughts  on  Religion,  p.  29.  When 
Romanes  gave  up  the  thought  of  Christ  and  God,  he  "suffered 
the  sharpest  pang  of  which  his  nature  was  susceptible"  and  "the 
universe  for  him  lost  its  soul  of  loveliness." 


212  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

morally  perfect  men  are  not  necessarily  identical 
in  character.  Indeed  the  probabilities  are  that 
each  one  would  be  different,  just  as  no  two  ex- 
quisite sunsets  are  alike.  Filled  with  the  op- 
timism of  Jesus,  we  may  go  a  step  further  and 
ask  whether  the  world  is  not  likely  to  see  perfect 
characters  produced  by  the  Spirit  in  the  future, 
especially  in  those  days  when  "God's  will  is  done 
on  earth  even  as  it  is  done  in  heaven." 

Yet,  even  so,  Jesus  would  still  be  "the  first 
born  among  many  brethren"  (Romans  8:  29), 
the  pioneer,  the  road  breaker  of  our  salvation 
(Hebrews  2:  10),  our  forerunner  into  the  holiest 
(Hebrews  6:  20).  Though  there  may  be  varieties 
of  perfect  men,  he  will  always  be  the  pattern  and 
the  prototype,  the  leader  and  perfecter  of  faith. 
Just  because  he  came  first,  he  occupies  the  unique 
place,  which  can  never  be  taken  from  him.  In 
the  course  of  our  history  there  may  appear  many 
Americans  as  great,  wise  and  patriotic  as  Wash- 
ington, but  no  other  can  ever  be  the  Father  of 
his  Country.  So  Jesus,  because  he  was  the  Be- 
ginning of  Christianity,  the  Founder  of  the  King- 
dom of  God,  has  an  inalienable  preeminence. 

But  Jesus  has  a  preeminence  far  beyond  this, 


THE  FINALITY  OF  JESUS  21$ 

a  uniqueness  which  guarantees  his  finality.  And 
here  we  should  proceed  slowly  and  circumspectly, 
considering  all  the  factors  of  the  problem.  The 
quiet,  morally  perfect  man  whom  we  have  al- 
ready imagined,  would  by  his  very  nature  desire 
that  other  men  should  enter  into  his  life  of  bless- 
ing and,  more,  would  have  so  much  of  the  Savior- 
heart  that  he  would  actively  try  to  bring  them 
into  it.  But  we  can  well  conceive  that  his  efforts 
might  be  confined  to  a  narrow  circle.  It  is  sig- 
nificant here  that  Jesus  himself  did  not  work 
outside  of  Nazareth  until  he  was  about  thirty 
years  of  age.  But  Jesus  felt  a  call  to  a  wider 
service,  the  call  to  bring  salvation  to  the  nation 
and  the  world.  This,  as  has  been  well  said,  was 
the  greatest  thought  which  ever  entered  a  human 
mind  and  left  it  sane.  Nor  was  this  all,  nor  in- 
deed the  most  important  thing.  The  great  point 
is  that  he  felt  in  himself  the  resources  adequate 
to  so  great  a  work,  and  that  this  self-judgment 
has  been  justified  by  history.  To  moral  perfec- 
tion, to  the  Savior-heart,  was  added  not  only 
the  wide  outlook,  but  ability,  capacity,  power. 
In  the  end  it  all  comes  back  to  the  greatness  of 
his  personality,  the  mighty  strength  of  his  soul, 


214  THE  MAN  OF  NAZARETH 

the  breadth  and  depth,  yes,  the  size  of  the  man. 
And  this  was  natural  to  him.  He  was  made 
that  way.  It  was  enduement  or  endowment,  as 
you  please.  Peter  tells  the  whole  story,  *'God 
anointed  him  with  the  Holy  Spirit  and  with 
power. '^ 

Of  this  most  significant  of  all  human  facts 
twenty  centuries  are  the  proof.  Jesus  changed 
the  whole  course  of  history.  He  created  a  new 
sense  of  God,  a  new  t3^e  of  man,  a  new  social 
order  and  a  new  world  of  life  and  freedom.  It 
is  the  best  world  men  have  ever  known,  but  Jesus 
insistently  demands  that  it  must  be  far  better 
still.  And  Jesus  has  done  all  this  by  moral  and 
spiritual  means,  by  giving  his  first  attention  to 
the  spirit  of  the  individual.  He  actually  saves 
the  individual  man  from  selfishness,  sensuality, 
pride,  greed  and  hate,  and  saves  him  to  a  life 
of  righteousness  and  unselfish  love.  It  is  not  only 
that,  if  men  will  follow  his  prescriptions,  they  will 
be  made  over,  but  he  himself  seems  in  some 
strange  way  to  be  the  embodiment  of  the  power 
which  urges  men  and  the  world  on  to  such  a  life 
of  loving  obedience  and  service. 

Moreover,  he  does  all  that  religion  can  be  asked 


THE  FINALITY  OF  JESUS  21$ 

to  do.  He  brings  men  to  God.  He  is  the  Way, 
the  Truth  and  the  Life.  Yes,  better  still,  he 
brings  God  to  men.  He  who  yields  to  the  spell 
of  his  personality,  surrenders  to  his  love,  unites 
his  life  to  that  of  Jesus,  gets  his  spirit  and  shares 
his  purpose,  that  man,  working  with  him,  finds 
God  in  Jesus,  sees  the  Father  in  him,  gains  his 
unshakable  faith,  and  enters  into  communion 
with  the  Most  High. 

And  Jesus  grows  on  the  world.  Pharisees, 
philosophers,  satirists,  atheists,  critics  and  psy- 
chologists, have  all  had  their  day  with  Jesus, 
but  every  new  attack  makes  Jesus  greater  and 
stronger.  Old  conceptions  of  him  may  disappear, 
but  they  only  give  place  to  larger,  juster  and 
profounder  views  of  his  character  and  significance. 
As  Browning  sings, 

**That  one  Face,  far  from  vanish,  rather  grows. 
Or  decomposes  but  to  recompose, 
Becomes  my  universe  that  feels  and  knows." 

Yes,  Jesus  grows  on  the  world.  The  more 
men  study  him,  the  more  he  impresses  them. 
Rival  parties  and  classes  claim  him  as  their 
leader   and   authority.     Nothing   against   which 


2l6  THE  MAN  OP  NAZARETH 

he  pronounced  has  any  future  in  our  new  world. 
More  and  more  it  is  seen  that  in  him  are  the 
principles  of  social  regeneration  and  that  he 
alone  can  unite  all  men,  and  that  only  in  himself. 
If  the  world  is  to  be  saved,  he  must  be  its  Savior. 
And  so  he  gains  a  universal;  significance.  He 
leaves  the  stage  of  the  historical  and  the  personal 
and  becomes  an  ideal,  an  atmosphei^e,  a  working 
principle,  the  basis  of  the  coming  age,  which  all 
far-seeing  men  perceive  is  to  be  more  Christian 
than  any  which  have  preceded  it.  The  world 
has  not  yet  outgrown  Jesus.  It  is  just  now  at 
last  catching  his  real  meaning.^  He  still  leads 
us  on. 

In  our  marvelous  world-history,  Jesus  is  the 
greatest  marvel  of  all.  No  one  can  ever  take  his 
place.  All  future  saviors  will  acknowledge  his 
supremacy  and  finality.  His  energy  seems  ex- 
haustless  and  indeed  increasing. 

^  A  single  illustration.  Fosdick  quotes  Dr.  Samuel  J.  Barrows 
as  saying,  "We  speak  of  Howard,  Livingston,  Beccaria  and  others 
as  great  penologists,  who  have  profoundly  influenced  modern 
life;  but  the  principles  enunciated  and  the  methods  introduced 
by  Jesus  seem  to  me  to  stamp  him  as  the  greatest  penologist  of 
any  age.  He  has  needed  to  wait,  however,  nearly  twenty  cen- 
turies to  find  his  principles  and  methods  recognized  in  modern 
law  and  penology." 


THE  FINALITY  OF  JESUS  217 

Men  have  always  asked  and  are  still  asking 
the  secret  of  this  personality.  It  will  never  be 
wholly  revealed.  Paul's  explanation  was  that 
God  was  in  Christ,  reconciling  the  world  unto 
himself,  and  that  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of 
the  glory  of  God  shines  on  us  from  the  face  of 
Jesus.  The  Church  in  her  enthusiasm  for  her 
Lord  and  Savior  has  tried  to  say  this  better  and 
define  it  more  narrowly.  Whether  it  has  alto- 
gether succeeded  in  the  task  may  be  a  matter  of 
debate,  but  one  thing  is  perfectly  plain: — This 
Jesus,  so  strangely  and  uniquely  full  of  God,  is 
Lord  in  a  sphere  beyond  the  reach  of  our  highest 
thought.  He  therefore  demands  and  deserves 
the  wonder,  reverence,  love  and  supreme  devotion 
of  every  human  being. 


APPENDIX 

AN  OUTLINE  OF  JESUS*  CAREER 

Part  I.        The  Life  before  the  Ministry. 
B.  C.  5  or  6— Fall  of  A.  D.  26. 
Principal  Events,  i.  The  Birth  at  Bethlehem. 
2.   The  Quiet  Years  at  Naz- 
areth. 
Part  II.        The  Preliminary  Events  of  the  Ministry. 
Fall  of  A.  D.  26 — Passover,  April  11,  27. 


Principal  Events. 

1.  The  Ministry  of  John  the 

Baptist. 

2.  The  Baptism  of  Jesus. 

3.  The  Temptation  of  Jesus. 

4.  The  First  Disciples. 

Part  III. 

The  Early  Judean 
Passover^  April  11 
Principal  Events. 

I  Ministry. 
:,  27 — ^December  27. 
I.  First    Cleansing    of    the 

Temple. 

2.  Interview     with     Nico- 

demus. 

3.  Cooperation  with  John  in 

his  Ministry  in  Judea. 
Part  IV.     The  Galilean  Ministry. 

December  27 — Passover,  April  18,  29. 
Principal  Events  (mostly  topical). 

I.  Jesus*  Itinerant  Preach- 
ing of  the  Elingdom  and 
Miracles  attract  Great 
Multitudes. 
219 


220  APPENDIX 

Part  IV.     The  Galilean  Mmistry— Continued. 

2.  Jesus'  Calling,  Teaching 

and  Organization  of  his 
Disciples. 

3.  The  Scribes  and  Pharisees 

increasingly  hostile. 

4.  The     Crisis     at     Caper- 

naum. 

a.  The    Mission    of    the 

Twelve. 

b.  The   Feeding  of    the 

S,ooo. 

c.  The   Break   with   the 

People     at    Caper- 
naum. 

d.  The   Break   with   the 

Pharisees  on  Eating 
with   Unwashed 
Hands. 
Part  V.       The  Retirement  in  the  North. 

Passover,  April  18,  29 — November  29. 
Principal  Events,  i.  Instruction  of  Disdples, 
ending     in     Peter's 
Confession    and  Jesus* 
Prophecy  of  his  Death. 
2.  The  Transfiguration  and 
Jesus'  Resolution  to  go 
up    to    his    Death    at 
Jerusalem. 
Part  VI.      The  Perean  Ministry. 

November  29 — Sunday,  April  2, 30. 
The  Perean  Ministry  was  much  like  the  Gali- 
lean, except  that  all  was  briefer,  more  pointed 
and  more  solemn. 


APPENDIX  221 

Part  VI.     The  Perean  Ministry — Continued. 

The  data  are  too  uncertain  to  justify  a  list  of 
principal  events.    Suffice  it  to  say  that  at  the 
close  Jesus  goes  up  to  Jerusalem  from  Perea 
by  way  of  Jericho. 
Part  VII.    The  Passion  Week. 

April  2,  30— April  9,  30. 

Principal  Events,  i.  The  Triumphal  Entry. 

2.  Second  Cleansing  of  the 

Temple. 

3.  Conflicts  with  the  Jewish 

Leaders. 

4.  The  Last  Supper. 

5.  Gethsemane  and  the  Be- 

trayal. 

6.  The  Jewish  Trial. 

7.  The  Roman  Trial. 

8.  The  Crucifixion  and 

Burial. 
Part  VIII.  The  Forty  Days. 

April  9,  30 — May  18,  30. 
Principal  Events,  i.  The  Resurrection  Morn- 
ing. 

2.  The  Appearances  during 

Forty  Days. 

3.  The  Ascension. 

(Note. — ^This  chronological  scheme  is  based  on  the  supposition 
of  a  three  year  ministry.  I  am  almost,  though  not  quite,  per- 
suaded to  accept  a  two  year  ministry.  But  such  a  change  would 
not  alter  the  order  or  relative  importance  of  these  events.  The 
substantial  historicity  of  the  Gospel  of  John  is  also  presupposed. 
My  acknowledgments  are  due  to  Stevens  and  Burton's  Harmony 
of  the  Gospels,  though  I  have  freely  amended  their  outline.) 


INDEX 


Adaptation  of  Christianity,  9  f. 
Aggressiveness  of  Jesus,  138  f., 

169  f. 
Antitheses   of   his   Character, 

195-200 
Apocal5rptic  and  its  Influence 

on  Jesus,    29  f.,   62,   84-92 
Authority  of  Jesus,  114,  177  f., 

193  fiF.,  217 

Balance  of  Jesus,  178  fE.,  198  f. 
Baptism  of  Jesus,  38-41 
Bringer  of  Salvation,  57  f. 
Broadening  Outlook  of  Chris- 
tianity, 8  f . 

Caesar  ea    Philippi,  Confession 

at,  37  f..  79  ff- 
Call  of  Jesus,  51-55 
Centurion,  Gentile,  150 
Certainty  of  Jesus,  168  f. 
Character,  130 
Character  of  Jesus,  166-208 
Church,  Jesus'  View  of  it,  149- 

IS4,  IS9 
Clean  and  Unclean,  79,  105  f., 

109 
Clouds  of  Heaven,  89  ff . 
Coming,  Second,  83-92,  161  f., 

165 
Common   People,   30  f.,    125, 
140  f .,  183  f . 


Community,  The  New,  145  f., 

151  ff.,  159  f. 
Constructiveness     of     Jesus, 

187  f. 
Conversions,  11  f. 
Courage  of  Jesus,  169  ff. 
Covenant,  145 
Covetousness,  131 
Crisis  at  Capernaum,  78  f. 
Cross,  146-149 

Death  of  Jesus,  80,  82  f.,  135, 

143-149, 163 
Deserted,  Jesus,  207  f. 
Devout,  The,  31 
Dignity  of  Jesus,  192  f . 
Disadvantages  of  Jesus,    2  f., 

178 
Divorce,  108 
Doing  God's  Will,  129  f. 
Duties,  Religious,  129 

Economic  Situation  of  Pales- 
tine, 24 
End  of  the  World,  131  ff. 

Faith,  122 

Fatherhood  of  God,  48  f.,  103, 

117  f. 
Feeding    of    Five   Thousand, 

78  f. 


223 


224 


INDEX 


Fellowship  with  God,  Jesus', 
47  ff.,  146  ff.,  163, 166  ff. 

Finality  of  Jesus,  209-217 

Forgiveness,  122 

Founder  of  Kingdom,  58  f ., 
85  f-,  137  f. 

Gentile  Mission,  143,  154-159 
Gethsemane,  146  f. 
God,  117  fif.,  126 
Goodness  of  Jesus,  200-205 
Grace  of  God,  102  f. 
Greatness  of  Jesus,  205  f . 
Greek  Influences,  23,  25 
Growth     of     Conception    of 
Messiahship,  41-56 

Healings,  140, 191 
Healthiness  of  Jesus,  190  f. 
Historical  Situation  of  Jesus, 

23-33 
Honesty  of  Jesus,  65, 166, 201  f. 
Humility  of  Jesus,  177  f. 

Inadequacy  of  Messianic  Title, 

96 
Independence  of  Jesus,  180  f., 

194 
Independence,  Spiritual,   125, 

182 
Influence  of  Jesus: 

On  the  Ages,  i,  4-18,  195, 

215  f- 
On  Christianity,  7-10 
On  Contemporaries,   3  f., 

188  f. 
Insight  of  Jesus,   112,  183  ff. 


Jewish  Trial,  36  f.,  94  f. 

John  the  Baptist,  32  f.,  39  f., 

78,    80  f.,    102,    150  f.,    153 
Joy  of  Jesus,  171  f. 
Judaism    and    the    Disciples, 

149-154 
Judea  and  Galilee  Contrasted, 

24  f.,  99 
Judge  of  Men,  59 

Kingdom  of  God,  58  f.,  71-75, 
83  f.,  116,  118-121,  131  f., 
134  f.,  138,  156  f.,  159  ff-, 
163  f. 

Last  Supper,  144  ff. 

Legalism  and  Jesus,  26  f .,  97- 

iio,  168 
Life,  Inner,  124, 181  f. 
Life,  The  New,  1 21-135 
Loneliness  of  Jesus,  206  ff . 
Lordship  of  Jesus,  177  f.,  193  ff., 

198,  217 
Love,  122,  126  ff. 
Love  of  Jesus,  126  f.,  140-143, 

172-178,  203  f. 

Man,  125 

Martjrrdoms,    Testimony    of, 

12  ff. 
Messianic   Hope,    28  f.,   34  f ., 

60  ff. 
Messianism  and  Jesus,  34-96, 

134  ^ 
Mill,  J.  S.,  45,  210 
Mission  of  Jesus,  53  f.,  64, 152, 

160,  168 


INDEX 


225 


Moral  Advance  due  to  Jesus, 
14  ff. 

Old  Testament  and  Jesus,  49  f ., 

98  f.,  106-110, 154  f. 
Opportunism  of  Jesus,  68,  197 
Optimism  of  Jesus,  173 
Originality  of  Jesus,  20  f.,  iii- 

114 
Outline  of  Jesus'  Career,  219  ff. 

Parties,  Jewish,  25-31 
Pedagogic  Difl&culties  of  Jesus, 

68  ff. 
Perean  Ministry,  92 
Perfection    of    Jesus,    43-46, 

209-212 
Personality  of  Jesus,  18-22,  65, 

200,  208,  212-215 
Peter's  Confession.   See  Caesa- 

rea  Philippi 
Pharisees,   26  f.,  97  ff.,  100  f., 

103-106,  150-153 
Political  Difficulties  of  Jesus, 

71 
Popularity  of  Jesus,  76  f . 
Power  of  Jesus,  188-194,  212- 

215.    See  Influence  of  Jesus 
Practicality  of  Jesus,  185  f . 
Preaching  of  Jesus,  139  f. 
Presence,   Continuing,   164  f. 
Proportion,    Jesus'    Sense    of, 

113,  182  f. 
Publicans,  141  f. 

Reality,  Jesus*  Appeal  to,  184, 
187  f. 


Recent    Triumphs    of    Chris-. 

tianity,  16  ff. 
Refinement  of  Jesus,  176 
Religion,  102  f. 
Repentance,  121, 123 
Representative,    God's,    56  f., 

185  f. 
Reserve.     Messianic,     71-75, 

77  f.,  86  f. 
Respect  for  Personality,  Jesus', 

173,  182 
Resurrection  of  Jesus,   162  ff. 
Revolutionary?  Was  Jesus  a, 

180  f. 
Righteousness,  121 
Rousseau,  45, 146 

Sabbath,  105, 108 
Sacrifice,  145  f. 
Sadducees,  25  f . 
Salvation,  12,  57  f.,  123,  136 
Secret  of  Jesus,  208,  217 
Self-criticism  and  Self-purifica- 
tion of  Christianity,  7  f . 
Self-mastery  of  Jesus,  190  f. 
Separation  from  Judaism,  149- 

154 
Seriousness  of  Jesus,  113,  120 
Service,  128 
Sexual  Purity,  128 
Sinners,  31, 141 
Social  Attitude,  130 
Social  Nature  of  Jesus,  171  f., 

175  f- 
Son  of  Man,  85  ff. 
Spirit  of  Jesus,  our  Ideal,  210  f. 
State,  The,  131 


226 


IISTDEX 


Success,  Immediate,  of  Jesus, 

75  U  82 
Syrophoenician,  143, 156 

Teaching  of  Jesus,  Esp.  iii- 

136: 
Manner  of,  103  f.,  114  fif., 

18s  f. 
Originality  of,  20  f.,  m- 

114 
On  Character,  130 
On  Covetousness,  131 
On    Doing    God's    Will, 

129  f. 
On  Duties,  Religious,  129 
On   End   of   the   World, 

131  f- 

On  Faith,  122 

On  Forgiveness,  122 

On  God,  117  fif.,  126 

On  Grace,  102  f. 

On  Independence,  Spir- 
itual, 125 

On  Inner  Life,  124 

On  the  Kingdom.  See 
Kingdom 

OnLove,  122,  i26£f. 

On  Man,  125 

On  the  New  Life,  121-135 

On  Religion,  102  f. 

On  Repentance,  121,  123 

On  Righteousness,  121 

On  Salvation,  123 

On  Service,  128 

On  Social  Attitude,  130 

On  the  State,  131 

On  Truth,  124  f. 


On  Wealth,  131  fif. 
On    World-renunciation, 
132  ff- 
Temptation  of  Jesus,  38, 65-68, 

204  f. 
Tradition,  Scribal,  104  f . 
Tribute-money,  93  f. 
Triumphal  Entry,  37,  92  f. 
Truth,  124  f. 
Twelve,  The,  151  fif. 
Two-nature  Theory,  41  fif. 

Universal  Man,  Jesus,  199  f., 

216 
Universality  of  Kingdom,  156  f. 
Universality  of  Jesus'  Ministry, 

140-143,  174 
Unselfishness  of  Jesus,  176  fif., 

203 

Vicarious  Suffering,  148 
Victory,    Final,     161  f.,    165, 

170  f. 
View  of  Future  of  his  Work, 

149-165 
Vitality  of  Jesus,  164,  189  fif. 

Wealth,  131  ff. 

"Why    hast    Thou    Forsaken 

Me?"i46ff. 
Wisdom  of  Jesus,  178-188 
Work  of  Jesus,  137-149 
World-renunciation,  132  ff. 

Zealots,  27  f.,  34,  61  f.,  78  f., 
93  f- 


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the  Changing  Order,"  "The  Gospel  and  the  Modem 
Man, "etc.     Cloth,  i2mo.     $1.50  net. 

Dr.  Mathews  here  enters  upon  the  little  explored  territory  of 
social  theology.  His  general  position  is  that  the  scientific  theologian 
should  approach  his  task  through  the  social  sciences,  particularly 
history,  rather  than  through  philosophy.  The  main  thesis  of  the 
book  is  that  doctrines  grow  out  of  the  same  social  forces  as  express 
themselves  in  other  forms  of  life.  Dr.  Mathews  finds  seven  creative 
social  minds  and  treats  the  development  of  the  various  Christian 
doctrines  as  they  have  emerged  from  the  earlier  of  these  minds  and 
must  be  created  by  our  modem  social  mind.  Such  a  treatment  of 
Christian  doctrine  serves  to  make  theology  a  vital  rather  than 
a  merely  scholastic  or  ecclesiastical  matter.  The  study  of  the 
social  minds  of  the  past,  with  their  creative  influence  on  Chris- 
tianity, gives  a  point  of  view  for  the  study  of  the  intellectual  needs 
of  today's  religion.  This  volume  conserves  the  values  of  the 
religious  thinking  of  the  past,  and  is,  in  addition,  a  positive  force 
in  the  reconstruction  of  the  religious  thinking  of  the  day. 

The  Christian  Life  in  the  Modem  World 

By  Francis  G.  Peabody,  Author  of  "Jesus  Christ 

and  the  Social  Question,"  etc.     Cloth,  i2mo. 

The  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  meet  the  increasing  impression  that 
Christian  idealism  is  inapplicable  to  the  conditions  of  modem  life 
and  to  indicate  the  terms  and  conditions  on  which  these  ideals  may 
be  perpetuated.  There  are  chapters  on  The  Practicability  of  the 
Christian  Life,  The  Christian  Life  and  the  Modem  Family,  The 
Christian  Life  and  the  Business  World,  The  Christian  Life  and  the 
Making  of  Money,  The  Christian  Life  and  the  Using  of  Money,  The 
Christian  Life  and  the  Modem  State  and  The  Christian  Life  and 
the  Christian  Church. 


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NEW  BOOKS  ON  RELIGION 


"DR.  RAUSCHENBUSCH'S  NEW  WORK 


Social  Redemption 


By  Walter  Rauschenbusch,  Author  of  "Christian- 
izing the  Social  Order,"  ''Christianity  and  the  Social 
Crisis,"  etc.    Cloth,  i2mo.     $1.50  net. 

Dr.  Rauschenbusch  here  pursues  to  further  conclusions  the  general 
theme  of  his  previous  books.  He  deals  less,  however,  in  this  volume 
with  economics  and  more  with  the  problem  of  how  the  new  social 
convictions  may  be  practically  embodied  in  the  life  and  thought  of 
the  church  so  that  they  shall  not  be  intruders  but  members  of  the 
household.  Among  the  questions  which  he  raises  and  which,  in  a 
measure,  he  answers,  are  the  following:  How  Can  the  New  Social 
Feeling  of  Responsibility  Be  Utilized  in  Evangelistic  Appeals,  How 
Will  the  New  Ideas  of  the  Social  Sin  and  Social  Redemption  Affect 
the  Whole  Scheme  of  Theology,  the  Doctrine  of  Atonement,  for 
Example,  How  Can  the  Religious  Feelings  Called  Out  by  the  New 
Social  Vision  Be  Expressed  and  Satisfied  in  the  Prayers,  the  Hymns 
and  the  Liturgy,  Ought  There  to  Be  Sacraments  of  Social  Redemp- 
tion Just  as  There  Are  Religious  Sacraments  of  Individual  Redemp- 
tion. These  represent  very  live  issues  and  Dr.  Rauschenbusch's 
ability  to  cope  with  them  has  been  amply  demonstrated. 


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NEW  BOOKS  ON  RELIGION 


Modern  Religious  Movements  in  India 

By  J.  W.  Farquhar. 

Illustrated.     Cloth,  8vo.     $2.50  net. 

This  comprehensive  survey  of  present  day  religious  tendencies  in 
India  is  of  tremendous  importance  and  significance  to  every  student 
of  reHgion.  In  it  are  described  the  various  new  religious  organiza- 
tions which,  under  the  impact  of  the  West,  have  arisen  in  India 
during  the  past  century.  The  Brahma,  Prarthana,  Arya,  and  Deva 
Samajes,  the  Ramakrishna  Movement,  Theosophy,  the  Bharata 
Dharma  Mahamandal,  the  Caste  and  Sect  Conferences,  the  Social 
Reform  Movement,  and  the  efforts  of  Muhammedans,  Parsis,  Jains 
and  Sikhs  to  accommodate  their  systems  to  the  needs  of  modern 
times  are  all  dealt  with  in  turn.  Portraits  of  the  leaders  are  included 
in  the  volume.  The  original  basis  of  this  work  is  the  Hartford 
Lamson  Lectures  on  the  Religions  of  the  World,  though  in  its  printed 
form  the  material  has  been  revised  and  enlarged. 

Vital  Elements  of  Preaching 

By  Arthur  S.  Hoyt,  Professor  of  Homiletics  and 
Sociology  in  Auburn  Theological  Seminary,  and 
Author  of  "The  Work  of  Preaching"  and  "The 
Preacher.''     Cloth,  i2mo.     $1.50  net. 

The  Work  of  Preaching,  one  of  Dr.  Hoyt's  former  books,  deals  with 
the  sources  and  formation  of  the  sermon  for  the  present  age.  The 
Preacher,  still  another  of  his  works,  places  emphasis  upon  a  vital 
spiritual  personality  in  giving  the  message.  This  volume  touches 
the  temper  of  the  man  both  as  to  the  truth  and  the  lives  of  his  hearers. 
"Preaching,"  writes  Dr.  Hoyt  in  his  preface,  "is  a  social  virtue. 
Nothing  can  be  more  fundamental  to  the  preacher  than  his  human- 
ity. The  deepest  needs  and  desires  of  the  age  must  be  felt  in  his 
life  if  his  word  interprets  aright  the  gospel  of  the  new  man." 

The  author  here  discusses  the  psychology  of  preaching,  though 
without  formal  and  philosophic  analysis.  He  always  has  in  mind 
the  question.  How  shall  we  speak  so  as  to  help  men  into  the  largest 
life? 


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Social  Christianity  in  the  Orient:  The  Story  of  a  Man,  a 
Mission  and  a  Movement 

By  John  E.  Clough.  Written  down  for  him  by  his  wife, 
Emma  Rauschenbusch  Clough.  Illustrated.  Cloth, 
i2mo. 

"  The  Christian  woricj  was  thrilled  over  thirty  years  ago  by  the  story 
of  Dr.  Clough's  work.  Now  for  the  first  time  we  have  opportunity  to 
study  his  methods,  to  get  at  the  social,  economic  and  religious  principles 
which  lay  behind  it." — W.  H.  Faunce,  D.D.,  President  of  Brown  Uni- 
versity. 

*'Dr.  Clough  was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  modern  era  in  missions. 
Before  him  the  purpose  largely  had  been  to  produce  a  western  type  of 
Christianity  in  Oriental  lands.  Dr.  Clough  caught  a  vision  of  the 
transforming  of  peoples.  Upon  the  foundation  of  the  crude  village  or- 
ganization which  he  found  he  built  a  Christianity  of  Oriental  type. 
His  method  of  baptizing  converts  from  heathenism,  thousands  at  a  time, 
on  credible  profession  of  faith  in  Christ,  has  profoundly  affected  the 
methods  of  Christianity  in  India  and  other  lands.  In  this  book  we  have 
a  graphic  description  of  his  ideas  and  methods  and  experiences." — E.  F, 
Merriam,  D.D.,  Managing  Editor  of  the  Watchman-Examiner. 

The  Gospel  of  Jesus  and  the  Problems  of  Democracy 

By  Henry  C.  Vedder,  Professor  of  Church  History  in 
Crozer  Theological  Seminary  and  Author  of  "  Socialism 
and  the  Ethics  of  Jesus."    ''The  Reformation  in  Ger- 
many," etc.     Cloth,  i2mo.    $1.50  net. 
"We  need  a  reconstructed  theology.    The  theology  of  all  churches  has 
been  dominated  by  monarchical  ideas;  it  needs  to  be  recast  in  the  mould 
of  democracy;  it  has  been  permeated  with  ideas  of  social  privilege  such 
as  were  unfavorable  when  aristocracy  ruled  the  world;  it  needs  to  be 
restated  in  terms  of  equal  rights."    These  sentences  from  Dr.  Vedder's 
preface  at  once  show  his  viewpoint.    The  Gospel  and  the  Awakening 
Church,  The  Problem  of  Social  Justice,  The  Woman  Problem,  The 
Problem  of  the  Child,  The  Problem  of  the  Slums,  The  Problem  of  Vice, 
The  Problem  of  Crime,  The  Problem  of  Disease,  The  Problem  of  Pov- 
erty, The  Problem  of  Lawlessness — these  are  the  topics  of  the  ten 
chapters.     The  book  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  important  con- 
tributions to  the  study  of  present  day  reUgion  that  has  yet  been  pub- 
lished. _^__«>__ 

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